FOR ANGELA
Margaret Menges
Angela’s coming for dinner, he said
he bought the card with flowers and red hearts
flashing in circles.
He set the card under the rose light
on the dining room table,
next to the bills and the junk mail
piled there in the daily hubbub
which we promptly cleared away
because
Angela, Angela’s coming, he said,
and it made me laugh to remember
and I thought it’d be swell to have a theme,
like a national holiday for young love, so
we had Angel-hair pasta and Angel food cake,
white and full of air, whipped cream
and strawberries redder than roses and
blood and fairy-tale apples.
Angela, Angela … she arrived like the
Fourth of July and sat at the
end of the table, staring into
the blue eyes of the boy I’ve known forever.