She got into my rented car
And it felt the same.
It felt like the first time she ever sat beside me
As I put the car into drive.
We kissed before we got into the car
And held each other close.
It felt just like all the other times.
We got to my hotel room
And we kibitzed like an old married couple,
A couple that really love each other.
Not a false note.
Not a sour word.
No uncomfortable silence.
I felt like we were married and I had just come back from a business trip.
Two years since we had seen each other
And it may as well have been a week.
Now
Seeing her there in bed,
Hearing her running the faucet in the bathroom
For what seems like forever
And I forget the two years
Where I was nothing and no one,
Waiting for help that never arrived.
The peasant uprising suppressed,
Their ill-equipped army fleeing or dead.
She comes back to bed
And I imagine that our kisses lock us together
And that tomorrow we will be together,
Standing here, sitting there, in front of our families
And our friends, smiling
Even if they are not.
But at this moment
We begin to make love.
It’s starting to rain outside
But we don’t hear anything
But us.
The next afternoon,
I solemnly file onto the airplane
Alone,
To land again in a place where it always rains
But never snows.
I got home that night
And when I fell asleep,
I dreamed of her
And I dreamed of snow
And I dreamed of us
While the snow fell.
John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals in the last dozen years. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.