The Truth About Tigers

Four things waited in the mailbox today:
an early Christmas card from your aunt in Ohio,
a bill from the electric company,
still arriving in paper despite being paid online,
a flyer from a real estate agent—
irrelevant now, but maybe not in three years,
when high school ends and the mountains call.

And then, this journal, ordered and forgotten,
its soft ivory pages filling with ink,
a quiet contrast, satisfying.
The blue ribbon, nearly the color of your eyes,
pulls me back to that little Italian place,
our third anniversary,
lit by candlelight and red wine,
a moment intact,
even as a thousand evenings
fade behind it.