The Wreck of Our Life Together

Jerry Bradley

February 14, 2022

“I drink to the wreck of our life together.” Anna Akhmatova, “Last Toast”

he orbited the Dairy Queen several times 

before he caught her eye

the signals he got in that first kiss 

were stronger than late-night radio

one usually forms good habits

and falls into bad ones

so they waited as fast as they could

and two years later wed

he told friends later he’d married her for her looks

but not the ones she’d begun to give him

a lot of history is not fit to repeat

but he never got lost in his own tears

now he notices the run in the night’s stocking

how the wind sings at every crossroad

and whatever edge he crosses

it’s a place where he never has the right of way

Jerry Bradley is poetry editor of Concho River Review and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters. His latest book is Rapunzel's Parrot.