The first time I met my wife

I met my wife three years ago. I did not know her name until later. I don't think she introduced herself, but maybe she did. I did not know her name until after, when I asked, Who was that? and was told that's Beth, and she reads.

When I first met her she was wearing an apron with funny frills, which I didn't know were meant to be funny. I didn't see it was a joke. She had short curly hair and a new tattoo. The tattoo said: simple. She was happy and she was making bread. She was smiling and she was leaving.

She was leaving for seminary, leaving the house where I met her and also leaving the state, but she didn't leave immediately. Two days later she was back and she was sitting on the porch with a Thomas Merton book and an open journal and I said hello, which was pointless because she was leaving. But I did anyway. I said do you mind? and she said she didn't.

Latter, when we were engaged, when I would kiss that tattoo and she would try to get me to say when I first knew that I loved her, she'd say she wasn't really writing in her journal that day. She'd say she was drawing a little picture of a bug.

You should have told me, I'd say, then I would have known I loved you right then.