The Question by April Ranger
For Carrie Rudzinski
I dream of someday having a daughter
so when she asks me what love is
I can tell her the story of us,
which is of course, many stories,
but here is the most important one:
eating pizza in St. Paul the day after
we read poems at your old Catholic High School
during anti-abortion week. The teens
wore pins with babies’ pink cheeks
and sometimes the word murder
and neither of us spoke of it.
Here, we burned our fingers
on the hot crust and while we waited
for it to cool, I asked Would you still be my friend
if I had an abortion? expecting a knee-jerk
Of course, but you looked at me
like I’d kicked you in the ribs.
The whole world seemed to stop.
I could hear ice swirl in plastic cups
at tables nearby, and isn’t this what we mean
by eternity? Not heaven
or hell, or purgatory, but the silence
after Would you love me if?
I watched you go inside to pray.
I’d seen you do that before,
while I waited on the steps of a church
in Sacramento, but here we stayed
in the red booth of the pizza parlor,
and I watched you go inside to pray.
My heart hammered in my ears
and I felt a thread inside me loose,
pulling me open, undone,
when your eyes lifted and you said,
Yes, April. It’s different for me,
but yes, I would. And I would go
with you if you needed me.
And if love is anything other than this,
than listening with your widest heart,
choosing words before you speak,
digging through your own beliefs
the way a farmer pulls up weeds
to keep her roots, if love is anythin`g
but an on-going question, how,
and meeting eyes and meeting eyes,
then I have never known it,
this is all I have to offer.
Art by Max Pechstein
Recommended listening: Tiny Desk Concert: Andy Shauf Sugar for the Pill - Slowdive
Links of the Day: An ode to vintage book design Succulent Cakes The Unreserved