Love in a Box
Laysha Collins
green-daisied floral paper
wrapped the dozen pale yellow roses
you gave to accompany an apology
now it wraps an old cardboard box
lift up the lid and open the past
the remnants of struggle
the sappy, sentimental words
printed on greeting cards
track the decline of "us"
from Christmas to St. Valentine's
to a fuzzy hedgehog with " jeg tenker pa deg"
each note a bit shorter than the one before
as we ran out of things to say
a simple gold ring with three tiny diamonds
I used to want to marry you
lying in bed on Sundays
when it was too cold to venture out
we'd wrap ourselves
in the golden lily down comforter
and watch flakes of snow melt on the window
fantasizing about the blonde-haired
blue-eyed
rosy-cheeked
children we ' d bear
and vacations to Fiji, Austria, Spain and Greece
a passport, student visas
countless airline tickets
from LAX to OSL
across an ocean
from two countries
and half the world
was nothing compared
to the distance that grew between us
a tiny gray mouse
a white bunny with hot pink ears
both could fit in my palm,
you shot the fingers off a plastic hand
and won them for me at Tivoli
you threatened to leave me that weekend
it wasn't the first time--
but once in the folded mass of daily snails from our first months apart
the declarations of love and devotion
could have made Mussolini cry
a ticket stub from the ferry to Kiel
a room key from the Pers hotel
a piece of metallic confetti from New Year's
when we danced in the streets with no names
and countless pictures scattered throughout,
if you went by the pictures. . .
we were perfect
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