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How I Would Paint Love

We sit on the steps of the hospital;
it’s three a.m. and no one else is in sight.
We joke about Yamaha Kawasaki, if it’s a boy.
Stephanie if a girl. Our heads are close in concentration.
There is time between the flow of waters and
the hours to come of contractions.

A week before, the air at three a.m. was nowhere this peaceful;
we were in the apartment of an aging hooker wearing
a gold lame swimsuit. You were drunk to your short hairs,
and I took you home like you were a teenager
who had just been caught shoplifting.

The small red mark that still shows on your temple
is from the missile I made of my wedding ring,
which is back on my finger, on the hand you hold so tenderly.
This first small crack in our marriage—I knew even then
we wouldn’t last, but tonight I was willing
to trade my tomorrows for one more day of you
sober and in love with me.