270: a bit of duluth

I remember Duluth as being this: cruelly cold in winter, that lake is no comforter. In the spring, fog, and summer too, and that fog horn, lonely and beautiful, plaintive and perfect. The lake like an ocean. Longing for the ocean. Summer writing workshops on campus. Autumn and spring brief, winter lingering, smoking cigarettes on the old porch, quilts draped across our shoulders. Hiking up the bluffs. Spotting hawks and eagles over autumn colors. Long kisses next to the fireplace. Dallas, young, falling into a wading pool, fetching the tennis ball. Again. And again. The fog and the early love and the lake. I loved it like this, the bitter cold, the smoothies we made in the tiny kitchen, the white cabinets, your hamster on a wheel in the night, posters curled, tacked up on the walls, everything blue and grey and beige, my hand in yours, and that love, our love, so early, so new, where it all began.