18 2017 dinner date (prompt table for two)

Dinner Date
by Paul Robert Sanford

At a table for two
we sat and smiled
as couples do on a date
early in a relationship.

That night marked the demarcation between my life before and since.

She flashed her radiant smile,
her delicate perfect features
framed with angelic curls.
A crystal on a chain around her neck,
her peasant blouse showing off her good shoulders.

From that night came a new career, parenthood, stability, and sadness.

I was in a brilliant, happy phase,
full of vitality and creativity
fairly wise and not too arrogant.
Still with hair framing my rugged features,
contact lenses letting my soft eyes show.

The biological clock was ticking for both of us, and this was my callback audition
for sperm donor, parent, life mate.

I never believed this spectacular creature
could really want humongous bumbling me,
and I drove her crazy with my insecurity,
but eventually she convinced me she loved me.
I adored her so much I was afraid to show it,
hiding behind a bit of gruffness from time to time.

That night was the beginning of two wonderful children, ten eventful years together,
the golden time that divided my long youth from my elderly disabled days.

I don’t remember anything that happened that night
at that table for two,
just an indelible picture of two people falling in love
joining their lives
blessed by the soft lights of a nice restaurant
on a momentous dinner date.