It was 1967 and we were sitting at a table
in the commons semi-circled by ceiling to
floor length windows letting in the warming

winter sun. Spoons clinked against saucers
holding empty coffee cups. The conversation
among us seminary students ranged from theo-

logy to gossip and the time together was
about to end when a classmate said he couldn’t
believe that I had misspelled a word in an

article in the most recent student literary
publication. In that moment, I decided to start
writing poetry again after not thinking about

it since my sophomore year in college. Maybe
I thought I could get away with misspellings
as poetic license or maybe I hoped my classmate

didn’t read poetry but that was when fellow
students didn’t show up to proofread articles
and before computers with spellcheck and

proofread. Anyway, I never thanked that class-
mate for helping me rediscover one of the
loves of my life to whom I have remained

faithful, more or less, through the years. And
best of all, my love doesn’t seem to mind
when I spell my love’s name incorrectly.