It’s been on my desk since I started this job, that framed
print of the selfie we took in Times Square –
September 2010, our first date – the Golden Arches,
and the red stripes of TGI Fridays behind us,
me in a light-yellow shirt, you in a turquoise scarf and a
necklace you still have. Glasses we’ve both since replaced.
I don’t notice it always, but today I do, recalling
the different time and country in which it was taken.
Then, we did not know our future – my moving, our children,
the unending mettle required of us all – but clearly, we knew
something, my arm around your neck, hand on your shoulder,
my thumb pressing your upper arm, holding on.
David de Young recently completed an MFA with NYU’s low residency creative writing program in Paris. He’s the proprietor of a small independent publisher, Nordic Moon Press. He lives in Finland with his wife and three children.