Letters To the Lives We Didn’t Have

after Jeanann Verlee's '40 Love Letters'

Dear B,
At night I’d put the baby in the crib and look out the window
Over the lights of the refinery to a distant mountain.

Dear H,
A cottage in a German forest and nine dogs, just as you requested.
One named Larry so he could always be happy as Larry.

Dear M,
We had kind of kitchen tiles you’d find in your mother’s house.
A calendar on the wall with peeling pages.

Dear V,
Sunlight on an orange crate in the corner. I would tape book pages
To the walls, so we'd live inside a story.

Dear A,
We’d take night walks. It always felt like October,
It always felt like train lights in the fog.

Dear O,
You proposed in a cable car. On the way down

I wondered if you really meant it or not.

Dear S,
On a balcony on New Years’ eve, you were waltzing.
There were fireworks and a feeling that I 
Should have been happier. Still couldn’t get my tenses right.