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 on 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 a journal,
ordered a month ago
and forgotten.
It showed up like a small gift,
I’m writing these words in it now,
having recently filled the last one—
proof that past me is good at buying things
future me will need.

The blue ribbon,
nearly the color of your eyes,
pulls me back to that little Italian place,
our third anniversary—
candlelight, red wine,
a moment that stays intact
even as a thousand other evenings
slip quietly behind it.