LOVE Poem: State, by Pasquale Gee

From July Baby

She shares a name with a state he’s never been in.
He loved her name,
and the way she would morph into
her Italian grandmother just to
show him how she says it.
Her close friends shortened it,
but that never interested him.
Just another nod to the fact
he wanted all of her.

He believed in the evil eye
so when people asked him about
his absence on the weekends,
he would redirect the conversation.
Until eventually,
he would give them one hint.
This was his new favorite game.
He would tell them that she shares a name with a state,
then chuckle as they yelled out
Washington?
Colorado!?
Ew, Oregon??
His secret lasted no longer than a few days
before he caved.
Not too long after that,
she walked.
It was around the time of
the midterm elections so for the next couple of weeks,
he heard her name,
but not in the way he grew to enjoy.
It was a bunch of old dudes on the news talking
about how politicians need her to win.
that she was important.
Shit,
of course she is.

A few months later,
he found himself at dinner with somebody else.
He wasn’t ready,
this felt dirty.
Simply just being there
meant that she wasn’t.
She was really gone.

The conversation lay dull and uneventful,
as they ran through the classic first dinner questions.
Not before long,
the new girl asked a question,
that caught his attention.
A question that pulled the right side of his mouth
to his cheek just the slightest bit.
A smile.

She asked him

“If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be?”

And for the first time in
way too long,
it was okay for him
to
say her name.