Stewart Todd
(1971 -  )

[Untitled]

We sat for the last time on that beach,
watching as the sun began to slip
slowly beneath the horizon.

As the last sliver of light surrendered
to the darkening water,
there were no romantic interludes,
no collapsing into each others arms
with emotions boiling over like lava rushing into the sea.

The brilliant embers danced wildly, temporarily,
up from the fire until one by one
they disappeared against the star-filled sky.
We huddled closer and closer,
as if, in a world so frigid and cold,
this fire was the only thing that could sustain us.
The warmth soaked our faces and hearts
until, on the turning away, we were buffeted
by the bitter night air.

We sat in the dark silence and listened to
“Still Crazy After All These Years” on the portable radio
when all we really wanted to say was “I love you.”
But we didn’t know the words, so
we fell slept on the cold beach,
and in the morning shook the sand from our shoes
and began our journey home.

Kindergarten Lessons

It was so important to keep
my box of crayons arranged
exactly like hers,
that I’d only drawn two circles
on my paper at the
end of drawing time.
That was the same day
I got my first wrong answer
in our activity book and
she laughed at me.

“Of the red wheelbarrows,
which two are exactly the same?”

I cried during nap time,
but later in the day
purposely put my red crayon
next to the black one
and told her that
no two wheelbarrows
were EXACTLY the same.