I am taking my own wife out on a date for the first time in seven years
and I am nervous
I shave and shower in all the right places and comb my hair stopping to pick lint from my clothes
I map it all out, google the possibility. In the car I can feel it pumping through my body
As if I don’t know what to say and if it would be funny and if she would laugh with me again in all the ways that it matters
This matters so much to me that I can't explain it… I want to be perfect for her, what she wants, but not just tonight, but over and over again. This is hard to do when they know you… and then I think of our sons, my youngest son's left eye floats like a beautiful white sparrow in its cage.
My other son's body trampolines itself into us.
This gives me strength.
When we get to the hotel I kiss her into the mountains and sail to the moon
For moments I catch her in my hands like a lightening bug and she whispery escapes… I think about doing what I know best, just throwing her over my shoulder and running… a Neanderthal, but I don't
And we eat good food and drink good drink and our souls open up a little more, she is going to be a bar tender, she is going to be a story teller, we eat steak and lobster bisque, I hold her all the way back to the hotel, her left forearm across my right bicep. Back at the room she strips her clothes and falls asleep,
I curl up next to her and dream and dream
of when the dinosaurs roamed the earth and I couldn't stop
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