Mike Bradford
Public Affections
You with Grandpa at a birthday party.
On the back you wrote
Ivan never wanted to be kissed in public!
You always wanted to kiss
(at the end I secretly loved you for it)
here you lean happily into your old husband
for all you’re worth, one hand resting
awkwardly on his lapel, half teasing,
pulling him toward you.
Your eyes are closed
as if you’re already kissing, but he’s laughing,
he barely manages his art of keeping an arm
around you and his face
just out of reach,
maybe trying not to notice how
your hair still waves so darkly and you smile so near.
Then there was the time I was about to draw near
when you said you still talked to him
every night and morning, and I imagined
your mass of warm rings and knuckles
tangled in his spot in the bed
as you woke, or slept.
Page(s) 27
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