Note: This poem was written for my wife on the occasion of our 10th anniversary. The day we met I took her to see the Caravaggios in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome. It's an episode I come back to often, as a reminder of how lovestruck I was - and still am - by her. ​

​
Caravaggio Was Our Matchmaker
-for Marta-

Here I am on our anniversary, running fingers
through graying hair, trying to stand clear of mirrors.

Somehow, we got here. Was it because of our parents’
failures that we’ve seeded patience in each other?

Or is it because of our daughter, the way she riddles us
with joy, twirls the world like a basketball

on her fingertip? Or because we are both unanswerable
echoes in a well ‒ that answered each other once, and well?

The evening I led you down the steps in Piazza del Popolo
unlocked the Caravaggios with my secret brass key

you leaned into me, pressing hair to my neck, breathing heavily
and in that moment I understood the torments of sainthood.

I kept your number in my wallet for seven years, folded
in the slip pocket like a prayer or medieval amulet.

At some point I got tired of it always falling out, its faded ink
illegible. The poems I wrote you, too, were of inferior metals

melted down and cast into new forms. Today they adorn you
in this bright band. Steady, as I slide it up the stem of your wrist.