February
Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
After I drank coffee and you drank wine,
and the beautiful waitress left without giving
us forks, so we ate the cake with our fingers;
After winter threw a glass of ice in our faces,
and we pulled our coats tight against our bodies
and let the wind push us into each other on the street;
After the lobby doors gasped when we opened them,
after the heat tumbled into us, and no one heard us
moan from relief; After the elevator door closed,
and we leaned into separate corners, pink cheeked,
the numbers ticking higher and higher and higher;
After you slid the key in and turned it, and I followed
you into your quiet apartment; After we stripped
off our coats both too fast and too slow, it was then
that I saw your bed, neatly made in the next room.
It was then that the present became the present,
became every possibility, became anything I wanted,
became a room full of hands waiting to feel something.
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