dear, do you remember our

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apartment in montpelier?

the one dipped in

perpetual autumn,

a dingy blood moon canopy

with the turkey-stuffed patchwork couch,

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bloated and sinking with fake feathers, the ones i stuck up your nose

and made you sneeze ten times.

do you recall the room

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with the smooth oak chairs,

carved with soft hands at the friday flea market

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from the lavender lady with the rough smile that winked at our long fingers, locked and laced,

long ago on that september afternoon, love-making by the window i pretended was a lighthouse

by the atlantic,

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winking away as the diamond-encrusted daydream rose and sunk like the peach-moon. dear, i

long for the oven-roasted evenings tucked under thrifted quilts we soon lost

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toasting for nights we later made up.