She hears him, at last, at the door,
entering with the two dogs
after a long walk, hanging up
the leashes, coming down the hall,
and leaves the bedroom where
she’s been dressing for their dinner
with a friend, to see blood rivering
over his face, oh my God—and hear
some story about how he lost his
center of gravity as he came downhill,
how he crumpled to the pavement,
head hitting last, with a discernible
thunk. She takes him into the bathroom,
makes him sit, and he lets her
wash and wash his forehead and cheeks until
she can see the abrasions, though they quibble
a bit about the choice of bandages,
until the extra large ones she insists on—
left over from some previous untoward
occasion—seem to perfectly fit.
He studies his eyes in the mirror—
they don’t appear unequally dilated—wasn’t that
a symptom of concussion? And off they go
to the chosen restaurant, where, after an hour
wait, they realize they have the wrong date.
That night, as they prepare for bed,
her nose-blowing leads to a deluge of glaring red
(Those blood thinners again!)
that runs onto her mouth and over her clothes
and gathers thickly in her throat, but she can’t
risk leaning over the sink to spit it out,
and is near panic until he sits her down,
tells her to count, slowly, to ten, hands her
pieces of cotton wool to stuff in her nostril.
She might think: so this is how
our lives begin to come undone. But
what she thinks is: Oh my God we’re so lucky.