portion of the artwork for Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz's poetry
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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FRiGG: A Magazine of Fiction and Poetry | Issue 36 | Spring 2012