Today's poem is by Judith Waller Carroll

The Wrong Man
       

A few years after I married you,
when our love had settled down
to that steady simmer
that's sometimes mistaken for boredom,
something triggered a memory—a whiff
of Brut cologne, iced instant coffee—
and suddenly I craved the misery
that marked my brief time with him:
the lurching stomach, the sweet
prickle at the back of my neck.
I even started to dial the number
I still knew by heart, but there you were
walking through the doorway,
arms full of something ordinary—
groceries or shirts from the cleaners—
wearing that half-smile
that could always start a fire inside me,
a flame much deeper
than the remembered pain.

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Copyright © 2023 Judith Waller Carroll All rights reserved
from Ordinary Splendor
MoonPath Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission