Love Letter Signed by the Actuary

Mary Fontana

Not that the way I take your slight-

ly larger than average hand on the street

corner is anything to note, or the salt

water in which our spaghetti wilts

different from what fills the dented pots

of thousands of other paired-off souls. That’s

my point precisely: millions kiss, name pets,

divorce or don’t, grow old or don’t. And die,

of course. Love’s accumulations code the dry

columns of my tables, when obscuring why

and whither next: the marriage pact,

the children born, on this row a habit kicked,

down there a kidney given. Most people like

to think they’ll buck the odds. Me, I acquiesce

to my most likely death at 77—heart disease—

leaving our dear replacements, and little else.

I will have defaulted on no debt

except for my great, abiding, unpaid—Juliet,

I confess in this matter alone I thought

myself anomaly. But then, we met.

Long had I clocked the measureable world,

its tremulous uncertainties, dice boldly rolled,

the steady gleamless pulse at the heart of it.

I simply never thought I’d be a part of it.

MARY FONTANA’s first book, a narrative history of the migrant hospitality house where she has volunteered for two decades, is forthcoming from Orbis Books. Her poems and criticism have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Only Poems, The Seneca Review, MER Literary, SWWIM Everyday, and elsewhere. She lives in Seattle, Washington.