A pair of wide-rimmed glasses made of polished
fake wood, notecards
Perched on top of thick textbooks marked by yellow post-its
And small wiry handwriting

A man and a woman nearby
Friends peeking on the edge of possibility,
Too anxious to hold hands as they teeter on the cliff,
Apprehensive as they fall into something they cannot predict

The man tilts his head
A joke. No, a funny one
Smiles from her, nervous laughter, eager
Eyes and a compliment

Before me,
Before us,
Before assurance or promise, he
Kissed my mother on her cheap vinyl couch.

Later, much later
They walked down the streets of Hong Kong,
Bangkok,
Yosemite,
Bali,
Jamaica,
His arm around her shoulder, a blanket in the cold,
A fan in the blistering heat.

She read the maps, he
Fabricated humor from the woven blankets of Asia
And the clear oceans of the Caribbean.
She laughed creamy clouds of praise into his open ears
And his smile and tilted eyebrows made her
Heart flicker like a broken music box.

There was an engagement, excitement,
A young, beautiful bride
Rushed slices of cake

The couple skipped from the bustling city streets to the notsuburbs,
Kneeling on the hardwood with paintbrushes wet in their hands
That dripped new memories onto her big shirts and his collared polos.

One long year, and the two become
Three become
One small family becomes
Five wielding iPhones and new textbooks become
Us