If you came to me now, I wonder if we would pick up where we left off-at a chain restaurant, chewing slowly and pausing every now and then to steal a kiss behind the waiter's back as if that would help preserve our initial fixation, or if we would silently assume all lost time is understood and forgiven and drive to Portland and buy a dog or maybe two dogs and go to the ocean on Saturdays and see the mountains and the valleys and the water because if we've come this far and we're actually going to try to follow that plan we made so long ago in our wild, ambitious youth, there must be some promise in leaving these familiar sidewalks and lakefronts and cornfields and bread and maples and cheddar and seasons, so I'll go to that distant river's edge and teeter there between the land and the water, between anchor and buyoancy, on the edge of stability
with you.