Love Letter

My dearest, you are not my first love

or my second, or my third.

But you might be the fourth (or fifth).

I’ll have to give it some thought

and get back to you.

Just remember there were a lot of years

before we met, and even though

you aren’t my first husband

you’re my favorite, by far.

And you’re the best-ever guy

at all the important things

like cooking and doing laundry

and taking out the trash and

I love that we share all those things

fifty-fifty, unless of course

you happen to cook a few nights

in a row and wash the dishes too

if I happen to be busy

playing Candy Crush on my iPone

or stalking old boyfriends

on Facebook.

And you’re so handy around the house

which is so sexy, and I love

that we never have to call a plumber

even though the upstairs toilet

still doesn’t flush unless you hold

that lever down for a minute,

but seriously, we’re saving a buck

and I think it’s worth it

even if we have to spend

an extra sixty seconds of our lives

six times a day waiting to make sure

it all goes down.

Six minutes is a small sacrifice

in the whole scheme of things,

I mean I get to live with you

twenty four hours a day

and sleep next to you for six of them

and holy shit, you don’t even snore

which makes you even more kick-ass

and I know there must be a few ladies

out there who’d love to be me

and get to laugh like I do

at all the funny things you say

and no doubt more than a few

have wanted to snuggle up with you

because you’re so handsome

and you’re the perfect height and weight

and you’ve got the greatest legs

and you can out dance anyone I know

except the contestants on dancing

with the stars, but I don’t really know them

personally, so it doesn’t count, I guess.

And I don’t know any other artist as talented

as you, except maybe the one who

got to paint the Pope for Time Magazine,

and I think you give Elton John

and Lionel Richie a run for their money

when you sit down at your piano

and fill the air with such blissful nostalgia.

And how many other brides

were serenaded at their wedding?

I don’t need you to guess,

the question is rhetorical.

My point is that I know how lucky I am

and I’m really overwhelmed

by how good I’ve got it.

Your abundance of awesomeness

makes it easier to tolerate the fact

that you’re a slob in the bathroom

and that you’ve never cleaned a commode

in all your life, and if it weren’t for me,

there would be sticky shit everywhere

because that’s the way you roll

but it’s okay because you’re the one

who has to do a lot of jobs

that I don’t want to because

I’m just a girl in the world

and I don’t want to pop the hood

and get my hands greasy to check the oil

in our vehicles or shovel snow

in sub zero temperatures,

but you don’t seem to mind.

And I love that you go off to the library

and bring home stacks of nonfiction books

to improve our minds and challenge

our many indoctrinations.

You make life interesting and

fun and you make me proud to be yours

and even though I used to be jealous,

you’ve earned my trust,

even though there was that one time

you lied about where you were

and then there was that incident

in New Hampshire, but it’s been so long

I’ve decided to never bring it up again

and don’t worry, I forgive you

for blurting out during an argument

that you pretty much wanted to bang

every girl who walks and

who is good looking and old enough,

but who can blame you, right?

It’s not like you’re going to do it,

just like I’m not going to bang Steven

even if he wanted to

because I love you, and he’s married

to Rebecca anyway, and I don’t think

she’d approve or give him a pass

even though he probably has the same

lascivious thoughts as you,

and he’d probably want to bang me too

if he thought he could get away with it.

I guess what I’m trying to say

is that you’re my true love

and I think we’ve found a path

through happiness, however narrow,

and if you died, I’d die too

until I decided it was time to move on

and it might take a year or two

or a month or a week

or who knows— I might meet

Mr. Next at your funeral

and he might be there saying goodbye

to his mother or his wife,

supine in the adjacent parlor

and he might have a son who is our son’s age

and the boys might really hit it off and

it might seem like your death

was meant to be and I might

wonder for a minute if god really did exist

and this was his way of saying

“See, it all works out in the end,”

and I’d lie in bed next to my new lover

and cry a few bittersweet tears

because I know this poem

would have made you laugh.

 

 

 

DeMaris Gaunt

1-10-14