catapult magazine

Subversive Love: Forty-five years later

by Carol Brennan King

I was a senior
He was a junior
He said he loved me
I couldn’t say it back
I didn’t know. Yet.

He was a senior
I was a freshman
He asked me to marry him
My mother had a heart attack and
I said yes.

We went to college, had children
Went to Africa to teach.
War came to town and
We came home
Without him.

For one month
I went to sleep alone
For one month I read the papers
And prayed not to see his name
For one month I dare not feel.

He called from the airport
I went to pick him up
A stranger. The Novocain
Had worked so well
I couldn’t feel it back. Yet.

My mother said
You can’t come home
Without Jim,
So we worked our way
Back to each other.

Thirty years ago.

And each night
When we slide into bed
When I throw my arm around him
Or he wraps me in close
We always breathe

I Love you.