I.
We married in the month the pipes froze
and took that as a joke rather than a notice.
II.
The first year we ate standing up.
The second we bought chairs we could not afford
and sat in them like people in a photograph
of people who are happy.
III.
There was a dog. The dog was not the problem.
There was a job. The job was not the problem.
There was a way you said my full name
when the day had gone against you,
and I began, without deciding to,
to flinch a half second before you said it.
IV.
Nobody teaches you the vocabulary of leaving
until you are already fluent.
V.
We divided the books by who had underlined them.
You took the cast iron. I took the kettle.
The dog, by mutual agreement, took the couch.
VI.
People ask what happened, expecting weather -
a storm, a flood, a visible catastrophe.
It was not weather. It was climate.
It was a hundred Tuesdays and a slow cold coming.
VII.
And still: the chairs.
And still: the year of eating standing up.
I would not hand it back.
I would not do it twice.
This a fake test poem created by First Verse - it will be deleted at launch
