-You have no idea-
she says
as she turns around on the spot between the curb and the crosswalk.
He stands there
behind her, his cell phone lit up against
the edge-of-Astoria greyness
in the hour-after-the-superbowl-ends quiet.
-Where are we going?-
she says
His response is an apology, his hand moves out
to catch the small of her back—the slender structure of her
disguised within a worn blue pea coat—
but she walks away in front of him, illumined by
the pools of light that flood from the subway station.
His google maps app did not tell him which direction
to head in first, so he led her the wrong way.
She is now angry.
They walk in silence,
she thinks about how her anger is quick
as a hornet’s. Buzzing, humming, white noise beneath the hood
of their affection.
Sometimes, she doesn’t know what to do
with the fact that they are so content.
What do you tell everyone when nothing is new except
the freckle you had missed on his neck for two years?
What do you phone your mother about
when your love is still as good as this?
So she makes up more difficult love stories:
unwashed dishes in the sink.
a forgotten envelope.
a misunderstood eyebrow raise.
tangled blankets.
a lack of time.
silly arguments on an empty street.
