Earthquake Cafe

It’s hard to believe
It’s been six years since the Earthquake Café.
Since the Science Center froze our shadows on the wall.

I wonder if they’re still there.

Six years since we made people double-take,
Look crooked at us and issue back-hand compliments,
And I’d say, thanks? I think.

Since we were that pair of people.
Six years and still not comfortable
Calling it a couple, “it’s complicated”
That status on Facebook was made for us then.

Seventy-two moons since the solstice
Where you were the first
And the last
Person to ever make me blush.

You’ll have to forgive the nostalgia.
This is how I get closure,
And writing is so much cheaper than therapy.

A lost generation unto our selves,
Not quite Jay and Daisy
Maybe more F. Scott and Zelda
Maybe more than a little crazy,

And now you have this baby cutting teeth.
You have this something stable,
This foundation not built on fault lines.
This life not given to blackouts and tremors.

I’ll toast to that.

Let’s raise a glass to the long shot
The reminder that a hail Mary is both
A prayer and a pass.

Raise a glass
To being better parents than ours were.
Let the next generation be less lost than us.