Turning Back the Clock
Because it tasted so good last night
tonight I cooked it again: linguine
alla puttanesca, spicy with hot peppers,
garlic, anchovies and black olives
and again we ate too much,
sopping up the sauce with crusty bread,
drinking the same dark wine,
listening again to Billie Holiday sing
“It Had to Be You” and “Sleepy Time
Down South.” Again we lingered
over cleaned plates, talking about nothing important
enough to remember the next morning,
then lay together on the couch, unbuttoning
each other, the only sound the clock
I turned back on our way upstairs.