The Ordinary Times

Backhand

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I’ve been thinking a little bit about songs and poems and about how line breaks can refine or create meaning.

Think of the song, “(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons.” Sam says,

IloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIIloveyouIIloveyou,

and you fall into his spell. You could marry him.

You think about the life you and Sam will live–him singing “You Send Me” at your wedding and looking all the way through your eyes into your quiet places the whole time. Your honeymoon: Barbados. White sand. Your children’s glowing faces as you drop them off for the first day of school.

Aging, and the smoke that begins to cloud his voice as the years pile on. Your wrinkles, gentle at first and then severe, that his trembling fingers trace when you make love in that relentless tired way the elderly do.

His funeral, the tears carving canyons down your cheeks. The white rose you leave to wilt in the dirt by his headstone.

And then Sam says, “for sentimental reasons,” and it’s all gone in a flash.

“Please believe me,” he begs.