And yes those Minnesotan girls their thick sturdy legs and golden Norwegian hair but mine not so hearty we messaged each other pink circles and hers like manna from red-painted fingernails cracked skin so she pumped lotion from Target red circles ‘round red circles those khaki pants I could tell from the start it would be her words and not any other’s and so we met at a bar under an overhanging neon sign that said Mayslack’s and she came in unraveling I stood up and we hugged I breathed her in like clean laundry and light perfume when she smiled because she was happy all youth and dark hair filling up the place like waves of black fire we floated past other dates so humble and Midwestern tapping feet to Replacements and Prince discussing followers engage and Red Wings new with novels published next year perhaps another year after that reviews Paper Darts and Revolver yes how we sat down and caught eyes and yes this artful east coast Carleton girl with a grandfather who owned a block downtown the one of Gay 90’s and yes that is why Minneapolis so Connecticut could wait how I was taken like always always falling in love from the start but it was different she had dimples like rosebuds and her eyes like chestnuts nature all exploding the universe embracing us making the bar warm and lovely and yes tonic bubbles traveling up her straw messengers of effervescence to the brain for kisses for me and only me not a fisherman or a lawyer nor a wrestler who was so strong because with my muscles like tree branches a force to be reckoned oh those Carleton girls their small breasts and large backsides she said to look before a trip to the ladies and when she got back she said to feel but only for a second and how the world opened and took me to heaven and Jesus sat me down and said you are special I love you see what I have showed you then the waitress came all tattoos a Vikings jersey yes Christian Ponder number #7 and asked if we wanted another and yes Alana said yes I will and so I had another too and we held hands across the table making a wicker basket carrying our emotions and I paid when next we walked out interlocking so sophisticated like Manhattanites her using my wall to dampen the winds such storms but we are almost there my seat warmers those friends to buns then how I said I have wanted to do this all night and hardly what was said before we had kissed and after in front of her brother’s house she giggled between kisses adorable she said the others all told her but I did not say if it was or was not in the back seat the heat at full blast her body pale and long near the end she said yes you are so big I think that is what she said and the glow afterwards such calm serenity like husband and wife after many years I imagined yes please God if you are up there please let this be as she and I are out in the cold kissing against the house yes we went away not looking ahead but behind at each other and at home texted when she asked what would you do if you were here and I said all the things yes all the things I would do then we fell asleep talking and in the morning the phone on my pillow like a mint of possibilities for all things toward good in the end then another date karaoke “Killing Me Softly” and “River Runs Dry” and when I took her home in a cab she argued with the cab driver because she knew what it was like to be away from home she had been in Thailand her senior year and he was from Somali so I kissed her to make her quiet her facing the back seat like wild and at my place we did everything in the dark but in the light of the morning and the rest of the mornings we would explore until we knew the other better than we knew our own and the next morning she called her friend on a light-filled cold Sunday and she told her she never gave that kind of affection on the first dates she was a lady and yes she was a lady a perfect lady how I then took her to her brother’s place she all bundled with a stocking ball hat and detachable gloves where I said goodbye and yes she would see the wrestler but how could I have known that would be the last time I would see her before she went to him the wrestler or maybe he was a fisherman when his dog and her dog would play in the snow of the frozen Minneapolis but later in the silence I asked and asked and wondered and wondered and yes I said you are cavalier with love, aren’t you, and yes she said he has a frickin family farm near Northfield oh those Carleton girls their dimples rosebuds their eyes chestnuts they are online with everyone else and we are all dying our hearts like ash.