by Scott Elgin Calhoun
It is February
we have been married six months
and all our appliances still work perfectly.
We have 100 watt light bulbs burning
all over the house, plastic over all the windows
a small fire.
There is a gap where the cold wind
blows under the door.
It is true that our house is not well insulated.
But today is Valentine’s Day, and you are in the
kitchen flattening pasta, cranking it out of a chrome
machine, cracking eggs one-handed
like an artist.
Angel hair streams down
and you steam spinach.
I wash arugula in a colander.
“Don’t move,” you say, and kiss me
with floured lips.
