Life is long if you give it away

We had a nice time last weekend. First, we bought tickets for a performance of The Nutcracker at The Fox Theater. A lovely production, though somewhat weirdly dotted with a couple of jarring, contemporary moments: a dancer air-guitaring; a breakout into choreography from the "Thriller" video. Crowd pleasers, certainly, but just a little odd. We stayed two nights at the hotel across the street from The Fox, The Georgian Terrace, which was great. Not the plushest place in the world, maybe, but extremely nice with stellar service. Because all their accessible rooms were booked, they upgraded us to a suite. A large bedroom with a massive bed, roomy bathroom, washer and dryer, a full kitchen, a living room and a study. We'll be going back. Sunday we took a cab over to Candler Park for brunch at The Flying Biscuit Cafe. Also very good. We are going back this weekend, I believe, with friends.

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HOW TO WRITE A LOVE POEM

Not that I would know the way
one knows his path through the worn night
to what his ancestors called
the icebox, the fridge filled with
chilled darkness and detritus
of meals, bundles of grapes
with their white-green skins
and pale, hidden seeds
and packs of ketchup and soy
and yellow mustard
with its alarming fakeness and
a slab of cake burdened with frosting—
God knows what else
except that I’m speaking
of hunger when I meant
to tell you how I’d write a love poem.
As if I knew any such thing
or how to do it
well enough to need the doing no more.
But I’m trying, I’m trying not
to think of the night
in which I must compete with Minnesota,
where you sleep.
I’m trying not to petition
Congress for that state
and all its beauty, all its sky,
all its state issued
bodies of water
to be canceled.
For all the doors to be locked
and the carpets rolled
up and the shutters cinched
against the storm thick
glass and winter declared first an emergency
and then a memory
and I am trying
to think of one rule
which must be observed
above all others.
But all I can see is incessant snow,
even in the month
for which you are
named. Dear heart,
you’ve broken
my own in your hands.
If this is a love poem, this is hunger, this is how.