Pete: “I want a birthday party for my lunch tomorrow. I want it after my lunch. I would like a cupcake. I want a cupcake for myself in awhile.”

Poppy, after having her hair braided into pigtails: “I look like Rapunzel. I look ladyish.”

Poppy, upon being told to fold her pajamas and put them on her bed: “I don’t like to wear them two nights! It makes me cross.”

Pete: “I goin’ to California.”
Me: “OK, honey. Have a safe trip.”
Pete: “Oops, I give you a kiss.”
He gives me a kiss.
Pete: “I goin’ to the grocery store to get a cookie. Oops! I forgot my pocket. Oops! I forgot my wife.”
Me: “Your wife?!? Where’s your wife?”
Pete: “On the ground. OK, I got my wife.”

7/52

Two tired people.

A book.

We didn’t have a date night at all last week, and this week’s? It was possibly the most low-key date of all time. I picked up a book of poems at the library, and we read them to each other. No candles, no romantic music, no flowers. Just two worn-out people and a book of poems. I’ve always loved Rockford’s reading voice. We had several English classes together in high school and college, so I used to hear it far more often than I do now. It was a nice change from having the TV on all evening.

Slow Dancing on the Highway:the Trip North

You follow close behind me,
for a thousand miles responsive to my movements.
I signal, you signal back. We will meet at the next exit.

You blow kisses, which I return.
You mouth “I love you,” a message for my rearview mirror.

We do a slow tango as we change lanes in tandem,
gracefully, as though music were guiding us.
It is tighter than bodies locked in heat,
this caring, this ardent watching.

Poem copyright © 2001 by Elizabeth Hobbs, whose most recent book is A Craving for the Goatman, Goose River Press, 2003. Reprinted from Poems from the Lake, Goose River Press, 2001. (This poem wasn’t in the book I checked out. I found it at American Life in Poetry.)