"From 12:57 Until 5:27", Say the Green Digits

I'll never forget that noise, my awakening and fear. I wish I could see you smiling when I sat up in bed - on the edge of my seat, as it were. Your dark outline, blacker than the night - why, it could be anybody. It's so far in the cold - you're out of your mind. You steal me out of my mine. You've done it many times before.

Bang, thwang, says the screen. Crrreak, squeeeak, creeeak, says the crank. "You amaze me," says I, and kiss you. It will be the first of so many. I'll sleep and wake again and taste you still.

It's hard now to believe that you were here, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen hours ago. I knew it would be. It was such a relief to me to find your belt on my floor just after you'd left. I picked it up and coiled it around my hand, hung on to it as the sun rose and I went back to bed.

I'm glad you got back okay. I'll bet you're even more reckless in crosswalks when I'm not around. I'm sorry you got in trouble. I hurt half my fingers replacing the screen. I couldn't call you in the morning because they took me to church. They hope it will be a rekindled first of many times. There I am wearing the same skirt and legwarmers and only you and I know. "If they take you back again, we'll walk home," say my sandals. You'd be proud of their spontaneity, and I would be, too. Now I almost want to, many times.

But we notice that home is because we're together. "He was here," say the 40¢ from your jeans pocket on my closet floor when I found them. From Thursday, right? That's simply amazing.

We're not like a pair of socks. Imagine if right and left didn't even matter. That's ridiculous. We don't fit like a zipper, only working if we're facing the right way. That's snobby. Maybe we're more like buttons and buttonholes. We match in all the important places - and together we cover it all. It's so good to have someone real to believe in.