Character (Meghan)

Character

I thought you’d wear glasses like Buddy Holly,

collect vintage corkscrews and Hemingway,

and we’d argue about Ernest until I admit

it’s been too long since I’ve tried his fiction,

until you point out that my diction in straight, pregnant

lines could be compared to his.

I’d find you typing at my antique table

an early Sunday morning and know you’d had another

vision, that architecture was building gargoyles

through your finger conduits for characters speaking

words you think you’ll say to me later

when your mind is quiet and we are alone.

And I’d make coffee and write beside you

because I want the muse back, too, because

experience taught me to love what you’ve written

without even spying over your shoulder.

You hate it, but you let me do it anyway because

you’ve heard the collaboration diatribe

and secretly believe I’m right, but most of all because

you like the warmth of my ribcage resting on your shoulder

better than the wistful expression you can’t quite read

as well as the paragraph I asked you to repeat

while I listened like a poet to a short not yet a story.

I thought I’d feel alone sometimes.

I thought you’d feel alone sometimes.

I thought we’d laugh easily,

that we’d hold hands in hospital beds

when it all comes to that.

We’d save our pennies to buy the moon,

pretending on clear nights it is already ours.