#13

By now, I would have liked to be married 

and divorced three times just to say things like “my 

first ex-husband used to polish our brass handles on 

weekends at ungodly hours in the morning.” Or to write anecdotal 

long-form essays on the year that I set aside a whole summer for a man 

I loved and cooked obscure dishes for us while scribbling my thoughts 

inside the margins of a stained cookbook. I would say things like — 

the weathered cookbook is lost, that blessed man broke 

my heart, but the summer was a matte-sunlight 

postcard. I would do it all over again. 

By now, I would have liked to tell dinner 

time stories to new friends about the temptation of

remarkable men I have loved — He never asked me to take 

off my lipstick. I was held by the gaze in his perfectly ordinary eyes. 

He held all parts of me with grace even when he didn't. — I would describe 

the rivers we crossed from whimsical to well-adjusted as we bought curtains. 

Or tell you of the grand gestures I performed for him silently. I was giddy, 

unravelled, tangled, undone. He didn't ask me to speak softly, and I 

picked him flowers for him because he deserved 

all the tenderness of my heart. 

By now, I would have liked to stop being 

enshrined in old loves and not consecrate these men 

as otherworldly because "in my memories, he stills hold me 

in the palm of his hands." I wouldn't say how it fell apart but how it was 

held together by the certainty of his practical resolve — one that gathered 

me and my extravagant life, one that could polish brass, paint my nails, 

cross an unruly river -- one that could melt brown sugar which 

we caramelised and poured over the apple crumble I made

for him after I had asked what he'd like for dessert

and he said, “anything you feel like, honey.”