The Power of Doubt

We met two weeks after St. Valentine's Day. A random
invitation to a poetry reading. You, alert in the last row,
hopeful gratitude splayed across your face, sending
sideways glances at me as I read three poems. Me, body taut
at the podium, heart drumming a nervous beat, eyes scanning
the audience of six, avoiding contact with you.

Afterwards, I sipped hot chocolate and listened to you
open your world. Amazed that here you were, and here I was.
Amazed that after weeks of not meeting, here we were, meeting.

For the longest time after that night, I would stare at you
as if you were an apparition, a ghost from relationship past.
Tantalizingly present but treacherously close to disappearing.

Even now, with night after night of slipping into peaceful slumber,
day after day of awakening into comfort and joy, something
as simple as a phrase in a book can shake relationship's tree,
can bring loves' leaves quivering to the ground.

Oh forever-after love, come, stay. Cast your imprint on our hearts.
Hold your finger to our lips. Ease away the spike of fear
that keeps us from folding, at last, one into the other in peace.