from Sentimental and Naïve Poetry

We climbed out of the car, me to smoke,
you to collect ladybirds. We both
stopped near a tree-stump, made
two children, and in a year the storm took
our roof off. Another year burned
our little summer kitchen
to the ground. We endured hard winters,
snows that stuck and couldn’t be
unstuck from our skin. The clouds whizzed by
electrifying my beard. The children grew,
but our gazes remained young.
I threw out the cigarette butt, you put the bugs
in your pockets. We left the stump
behind, turned back to the road, to the car.