Two poems on reunion

My extended family on both sides lives in Connecticut, and when I was eight my parents, brother, and I moved to Massachusetts, then to Maine, then I moved back to Boston for college. Years later I met a man whose family lived in Connecticut. He would become my housemate, then best friend, then—in what must be one of the longest friends-to-lovers narrative arcs ever written—my boyfriend. So driving to Connecticut has been symbolic my whole life of reuniting with loved ones.

I wrote this first poem in April, 2020, near the beginning of the pandemic. And I wrote the second one this year. Today I’m driving again to the border to meet my love and bring him home (this time after just a four-day separation).

I hope you all have someone you’d drive all night for, who would meet you in a field with coffee and donuts. And if you don’t, let’s keep meeting here, and keeping vigil in our loneliness until we do.

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Reunion

You and I
were never much for crowds
anyway

But when this all is over
let’s meet in a field, somewhere
near the Connecticut border

I’ll bring coffee and you bring donuts
just so we can both have someplace to stop

And tell the person at the coffee shop
“I’m going to meet my friend.”

What I’d do for love

Listen, I would give a million dollars
If I had a million dollars—
I would give my right arm—
not literally, but
I am trying to tell you
how much I want—
it is more than a want—
or a need—I know I wouldn’t die—
but what I’m trying to say
is that I no longer know how to live—
a hundred miles, maybe a thousand—
not walk, because my feet hurt
but I’d drive all night—
yes, I could do that—
drive with coffee and
the blaring of the Beatles
on my car’s old CD player—
to hold you in the
golden light
of dawn.

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