LITTLE THINGS
Gay Baines |
 |
Whether to shop in the store
with the good bakery and salad bar
or in the one with no salad and lousy bread
because they use price stickers.
Which route to take home.
To pass or not to pass
trucks on the Thruway. For that matter,
how fast to drive on the Thruway.
Whether to scream at the checkbook
that won't balance, or to let it go.
Spilled coffee. Dead batteries.
A loose button.
Is this why we ran off one April night,
as the sun dropped over the mossy
grass at the edge of the roadway,
to say vows in a justice's office?
Is this why we always had
a rack put on the car so that
we could pack camping gear,
two boats and a box of food
to dwell in Ontario woods, by a lake
bordered by pink rocks?
Now I have unfinished crossword
puzzles, philosophy books with broken
bindings, inked-in questions, a folded slip
in the middle, beyond which you could not go.
I try to remember that, whatever else
went off the rails, you still loved Puccini,
still loved the Group of Seven, still loved,
though with a lesser passion, me.
CC