Fairy Tale

Their love was well documented,
known long before
they allowed themselves
to think about it
The streets they walked,
amazingly chalked
with hopscotch patterns marked
where no children lived
Trees under which they sat,
rustled leaves on afternoons
while sailboats
lay dead becalmed
A neighbor took note
the bus was always there for them
a scheduling miracle of sorts
proving fairies were about,
requiring candles lit
in the local parish

Love is like that

They were late to the party,
so to speak, blissfully unaware
insofar as the recognition
of these signs
Believing they had a choice
about such matters of the heart,
of soft leaf music
and hopscotch patterns
She thought about him
mostly when he wasn't there
and he could think of little else
but her, there or not
Letting a few things slide at work
and wondering why,
but the wind knew
and cracks in the sidewalk always know
and the bus of course
was the clincher

Soft music in the background

And so it went, when it went at all
in fits and starts, stargazers
looking backward looks,
sometimes forgetting laundry
And then it went more quickly,
the heady stuff of learning
the fun to be had
over scorched eggs at breakfast
More breakfasts shared these days,
a winding of the clock
that ticked in the wind
and brought the bus
There's a time for ecstasy
and it seemed to be their time
and it was new,
golden as French toast
and the neighbor lit candles
for the bus that kept coming

Illustrations boldly drawn in color

Their unravelling should have been
known to them as well
and wasn't, but then this
is a fairy tale of sorts
And after a while scorched eggs
no longer seemed such fun
and the drain in the kitchen sink
backed up on Tuesday
Before much longer, the bus
was strangely late and so were they
as the neighbor lady smiled
and saved her candle money
Once a quiet midnight rain
crept around the corner of the window
and crawled across the ceiling,
dripping precisely,
to drop exactly in the middle of the bed,
wetting no one

An omen, fairy tales have omens

He began to make excuses then
and she began to accept them,
glad to stay late at her office
and catching up on Vonnegut
Eggs after all, were high in cholesterol
and maybe he was too
so it seemed logical to diet
and fall out of love
The water mark on the ceiling dried,
the sink regained magical
gravitational efficiency
and a persistent pimple disappeared
She runs for busses now and all too often
the doors are closing
and strangely enough she whistles
and waits for another
because in fairy tales,
another bus will always come along