Laura Page is editor-in-chief of Virga Magazine. Her own stories and poems have appeared in many literary publications, including Minola Review, Red Paint Hill, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, The Fanzine, TINGE, Kindred, and others. Laura lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, her two sons, and a feline almost as misanthropic as herself.
A Sunburn and a Polaroid.
When we sat there against the fence rail
feeling the palpitations of each green leaf on the trees,
you said we were unbridled extremists.
When you touched your index finger to the
four little freckles on my forearm,
one of the rough, russet bricks fell
from the great wall of my heart
to the raw paved floor of my diaphragm.
It sounded like a big cardboard page turning,
and slapping against the next one.
We laugh histrionically.
And then we laugh naturally.
And naturally, I said yes when you asked me to marry you,
no diamond but the glinty blue compressed carbon
in your eye.
We cry belatedly.
We cry when we’re on the edge of things.
And I cried when I realized that I got exactly what I wanted:
a ceremony in the foothills with
a sunburn and a Polaroid.