The First Man You Loved

by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg

He crossed one thin leg tightly over the other,
leaned to light a cigarette of the recent past
with the fire of the future.  Your grandfather
holding you on his lap so you could stare in stereo
across the park to the big kids kicking a deflating ball
into the present, just missing your head.

It’s 45 years after your grandfather died,
one hand holding a new pack of cigarettes,
his other hand on the door handle of his store.
The sky is unusually pink this December morning
at the end of another decade.  An envelope
on your desk holds new old photos of the others —
your grandmother, father, whole sheaves of uncles,
people you can’t remember from college,
even the ones you swore to love across streets
of change long before you understood what endures.

The first man who ever loved you didn’t say much.
You sat on his lap, dunking your cookie in his tea,
both of you lost in the black and white flashes
of a showdown at the Okay Corral, sunset
reddening the rectangles of time we call windows.
He let you be, which was how you knew what love was.