Forty1

Long before there was a

lower forty there were just a couple of ones

that later became

one you 

and me,

and then became one

youandme.

Long before we came 

to become, 

we were in 

the first steps of 

our first forty.

And then we found 

forty years behind us 

and now 

we are once again 

at One…

forty and one,

one more year, 

one more night, 

One more page in 

this story, 

this series of ones 

that keep adding up to 

one more.

What might have begun as 

one life or death question 

about an old oak’s roots 

or one request to borrow 

a typewriter 

or one evening to share 

a twin burger 

and fries, 

one late night 

cinnamon roll for two,

one last minute 

dash to a movie

a slide under the previews 

just in time.

One plus another one.

A mistake that made 

everything better; 

a lost transcript, 

a lost invitation, 

a lost way, a lateral 

snow drift on a 

mountain pass that led 

from me to you in a 

roundabout way, 

an unintended consequence, 

a loss of more than innocence 

like that time we ran outside to dance through rain, 

a kind of crazy 

that’s not insane, 

a mistake for some,

for us another step, 

another road for us 

where one another 

becomes each other.

Make no mistake, 

every missed take 

I’ve taken always 

brings me back to 

those early mistakes 

I learned to love 

for their incorrect, yet 

beautiful selves, 

mistakes I discovered 

and lifted off the page before I,

myself was lifted off the ground

and mistakenly drifted out of

my lane and into yours, and

eventually your head rested on

my lap in the late night hours

between sunset and sunrise,

moonlight drives to nowhere in

particular, long reclines with

nothing on but the music that

filled in the cracks of the doors,

the who could know what

might happen next?, 

the next one breath and laugh

and plan we would share

together because we were

the next becoming one 

like so many before and 

the many yet to come. 

A long  timeline of ones that

stretches back from before

these forty plus one began, 

back to the first time we met

and probably didn’t even know

it. In line, perhaps, or on a path

between classes, somewhere

before we could imagine one

conversation, one night, 

one ring, back before this

forty-one on one day in May

when a couple of ones became

two together, and then 

together became one.

May 27, 2019