I’m sitting here, minding my own business,
and you’re tremendous
in each chaos-theorizing step you take
toward me as if I’ve done
anything at all to deserve
anything at all, let alone a life less alone
with you making sure
I’ve got a reason
to eat breakfasts
that no longer include
leviathan levels of bacon. Meanwhile,
I’m an all-out vegan
in my heart’s next New Year’s resolution
and it’s only Valentine’s Day,
but this first date already has me
wishing we could have only dates
like our third where I’m imagining
making love like the grown-ass adults we are,
then snoozing spooning,
then waking and baking
a small bag of preposterous weed in bed.
In that creativity,
I’ll think about how
I’m not taking credit for inventing all
sexiness in the galaxy,
but I did comb my hair today,
thanks for noticing.
So, I’ll be gosh-darn glad when,
as I’m sobering, you look
as holy-shit happy as I look
in my mind’s full-length mirror.
So, I stand up to greet you.
And I shake your hand. And now
the inevitable is about to become history.

Matt Zambito is the author of The Fantastic Congress of Oddities, and two chapbooks, Guy Talk and Checks & Balances. New poems are forthcoming in swamp pink, Tampa Review, Cottonwood, Slipstream, Wisconsin Review, and elsewhere. Originally from Niagara Falls, he has lived in Ohio, Idaho, Washington, and New York, where he now resides with his rescue dog, Sadie.