It takes 188 steps
from my door to the mailbox you still keep,
another 10 steps to reach your foyer,
8 if I choose to leap.

I have the nerve to enter
without a warning or a knock,
but your eyes still light up at me
before I even start to talk.

The house is warm with cinnamon,
coffee dressed up for a Sunday,
then you wrap your arms around me
and the whole week falls away.

I know where you keep the glasses,
you know which cup I always choose,
we have never named this thing we have,
there is too much we could lose.

So we gatekeep all our Sundays,
let the rest believe what they please,
there are things that feel much safer
when nobody asks what they mean.

Then one Sunday I come walking,
all 188 the same,
past the mailbox to your foyer,
but something there has changed.

I enter like I always do,
your eyes still brighten when they see me,
then another pair looks up behind you
and suddenly there are three.

There are two cups on the table,
there are two pairs by the door,
and someone knows where you keep things
I thought I knew you for.

You pull me into your embrace,
your arms remember me the same,
but I forget where mine should go
when you softly say her name.

You introduce us with a smile,
and God, I wish that she were cruel,
but she is warm and she is lovely,
so I have no one else to fool.

We sit and have our coffee,
I take the place I always take,
no one ever asks me to move,
and somehow that’s the greater ache.

She knows how much cinnamon,
you laugh before she ends her line,
I wonder how much of loving you
was only ever mine.

When it’s time for me to leave,
you follow like you always do,
standing with me by the foyer
like Sundays still belong to two.

“Come again next Sunday?”
you ask as if nothing has changed,
I smile and say, “Of course,”
then walk back the way I came.

It takes 198 steps
from your front door back to mine,
funny how the same old distance
can grow longer overnight.

I thought what we were hiding
was the thing I had to keep,
I never feared another heart
would make those final 8 steps leap.