Love Poem

By Lisa Papademetriou

You are eating that cookie just to infuriate me,
Aren’t you?
Chomp, smack, slurp, smacksmacksmack.
I can’t believe you would chew that way
When you know it makes me crazy.
Especially after you
Said that thing
You said.
Well, I’m giving you
The Silent Treatment.
I’m not going to tell you how much your cookie eating
Irritates me, because then you will
Get angry and we really will fight.

Once I asked my mother
Why she divorced my father.
What was the final
Straw?
It was
The way he ate cheese,
My mother said.

I can see that now.

Why do people get married?
Is so different from the picture that lingered
In my childhood mind.
There, marriage meant never having to say you were sorry,
Because you were never sorry
Because you and your husband
Always agreed
Of course
Of course.

It has been two hours, and you haven’t even noticed
That I am giving you The Silent Treatment!

There you sit, at your computer, typing away.
Working.
Working at bedtime!
Working,
After you ate that cookie smacksmacksmack
And after you said that thing
You said.

I am lying here, hugging a pillow,
Staring at the window
When you finally pull back the covers.
Your arm snakes around me.
A soap bubble kiss shimmers at the base of my neck.
I wrap my foot around your ankle.
I feel your chest rise and fall against my back.
Your body radiates heat.
Your breath is even.
In. Out. In.
Out.
In.
My breathing falls into your rhythm.
This way, at last,
We fall asleep.

Lisa Papademetriou is the author of the CONFECTIONATELY YOURS series, A TALE OF HIGHLY UNUSUAL MAGIC, and many other novels for young readers. A former editor, she serves on the faculty of the MFA program at Sierra Nevada College and is the founder of the humorous grammar site IvanaCorrectya.com.

Lisa Papademetriou

Lisa Papademetriou is the author of the CONFECTIONATELY YOURS series, A TALE OF HIGHLY UNUSUAL MAGIC, and many other novels for young readers. A former editor, she serves on the faculty of the MFA program at Sierra Nevada College and is the founder of the humorous grammar site IvanaCorrectya.com.

www.IvanaCorrectya.com