Saturday Morning (Meghan)

Saturday Morning

Our newspapers are folded back on themselves

hinged at the paper’s waists.

Contorted, I think they laugh at us like acrobats

who can speak with heads between their ankles

for still insisting on newsprint and ink.

I rest mine on bare knees and thighs.

I’ve taken to short versions of Victorian nightgowns

and thick, black glasses someone purchased in the 1960’s.

And I wonder when we started putting 19 in front of 60’s

because it happened so slowly since the millennium changed.

I’m reading about war again; you’ve got Arts and Leisure.

In a moment, we’ll switch, breaking from one head space,

driving toward a new, but this isn’t news.

You, in that old concert t-shirt,

are thinking about time’s functional existence,

the day we met,

(cross-legged, you turn the page and fold it back),

the new exhibit at the Rodin,

(adjusting the pillow behind your neck)

how next year it will be old.

You told me once that’s nothing’s permanent.

I agreed but called you lazy, evoked the que sera sera

that crumbles without infrastructure.

I think you might have smiled and said something

like, “Of course.”

I wonder if you hate these short Victorian nightgowns,

the pretension of glasses I barely need,

but even I can’t be sure of everything I read.

I move to make coffee.

You reach for a handful of ivory gauze,

hold on to a falling strap of lace,

and very clearly say, “Stay.”