Do you?
Love the girl who is quietly sleeping.
On the sofa in your living room.
Heart beating steadily under your splayed hand an
unopened
bottle of Israeli wine left under the table.
Both too tired to drink it,
you leave it for later another night when your eyes can stay open.
Remember?
Holding her hand at 2 am,
running in a circle, feet kissing a rubber track.
Until you fall laying on yesterday’s rain wanting to swallow
the sky,
so you can feel stars in your stomach.
Forget butterflies and caterpillars and ladybugs and spiders,
it’s too cold for them right now not even 32० you need to put your jacket on.
Do you?
Love the girl who you just said goodnight to?
Who gave you a bag of loose leaf peppermint tea.
Who knows it is your favorite because, you mentioned it once
before
in front of a fire while it rained.
The clouds were heavy with themselves last night too.
Perfect weather for wishing you had told her you love her.
Remember?
Drinking up the cold,
how delicate it made you feel walking with her.
Downtown, past the man who was feeding the birds
sliced bread,
even though you shouldn’t feed birds bread.
Even though you shouldn’t fall in love so quickly.
In your mind you joined him, to drop pieces of torn up white bread to the birds.
AOIFE SMITH is a first-year student at Smith College and intended Study of Women and Gender major and poetry concentrator. They have previously been published in the literary journal The Quill.
