A Poem for A Sort-Of Anniversary

Friday, March 22, 2013

Marriage
Lawrence Raab

Years later they find themselves talking
about chances, moments when their lives
might have swerved off
for the smallest reason.
                               What if
I hadn't phoned, he says, that morning?
What if you'd been out,
as you were when I tried three times
the night before?
                       Then she tells him a secret.
She'd been there all evening, and she knew
he was the one calling, which was why
she hadn't answered.
                            Because she felt--
because she was certain--her life would change
if she picked up the phone, said hello,
said, I was just thinking
of you.
            I was afraid,
she tells him. And in the morning
I also knew it was you, but I just
answered the phone
                          the way anyone
answers a phone when it starts to ring,
not thinking you have a choice.

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