a picture of you
It is a picture of you,
wearing only a grey bra
and grey underwear.
It is 4:53pm on October
first. You are standing
before your bedroom
closet. Your back is
turned to me. You are
deciding which outfit
to wear. I am lying on
your bed writing this
poem. Tonight we
have a dinner reservation
at some upscale place.
It is not for four more
hours. You make a joke
about my sweater. It has
upside-down crosses on it.
You say when I meet your
family, perhaps it would
behoove me to wear a
flannel instead. We laugh
about this. Then we kiss.
It has been two years.
We are in love.
Tohm Bakelas is a social worker in a psychiatric hospital. He was born in New Jersey, resides there, and will die there. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including “Cleaning the Gutters of Hell (Zeitgeist Press, 2023) and “The Ants Crawl in Circles” (Bone Machine, Inc., 2024).