Page 11 of The Autumn We Fell in Love

All of Rowan’s critics, colleagues, and adoring fans can’t say enough about how sexy and sensual his first collection is, how hot it is. It got all their panties in a twist.

When I read his Pushcart-winning words, though, I see something else.

Sure, there’s sensuality — but embedded in every poem is a profound sense of longing. He writes of love, but also of the yin to its yang — raw, chafing loneliness that can eat a person alive from the inside out.

When I read this book, I feel like I’m reading the story of my own life. There’s the elation of newfound love, the exhilaration of sexual exploration. And there’s also loss and betrayal and pain. In between, there are the questions of how does a relationship survive the mundanity of everyday life, exactly, that I asked myself practically every damn day of my marriage to Seth.

I identify strongly with the cataclysms of Rowan Keating’s poetry.

I’ve read the whole book all the way through multiple times, but I can’t get enough of it. It beckons me away from my lesson planning and I eagerly give in to it.

His words are perfect.

Hell,he’sperfect.

Too bad he’s a) my teacher, b) famous, and c) would never want me in the way Amy says he does. Even though she’s right, his eyes are all over me during every single class.

I’m just not sure I can bring myself to believe that love is possible for me. Not this late in life. And certainly not with a glorious specimen like Rowan Keating.

So I revel in his exquisite words instead:

love is the absence

of anguish and the purveyor

of it, and who are we

to know the difference?

fall into my arms

so I may try to discover again

if we are in the throes of passion

or pain (who are we

to know the difference?)

A shadow falls across the page. Like a teenager caught reading an erotic novel when she should be doing her schoolwork, I slam the book shut and look up.

My throat constricts and my heart swells as my vision fills with Rowan Keating.

I wonder if I’m as breathless as I feel, panting with both pain and pleasure at his words — and at the sight of their creator.

“I’ve heard great things about that book,” he says, blue eyes glinting, “most of it hype.”

“Most people don’t understand it as the profound meditation on love versus loss that it is,” I fire back, semi-surprised to find myself ready with an intelligent reply but mostly enjoying the opportunity for some intellectual banter. “The plebeians just see it as a collection of love poems to use to get their Tinder dates into bed.”

“I can’t decide,” he says, tipping his head to one side as he considers me, “if that was a compliment or not.”

I feel my skin prickle deliciously under his examination. “I was going for compliment.”

“That’s a relief,” Rowan says, but there’s an odd tension in his voice, like he doesn’t quite believe me — or himself. “Getting some schoolwork done?”

I shrug. “Sort of? I’m supposed to be prepping my lessons, but I’m procrastinating by reading instead.”

He grins. “My favorite way to procrastinate.”

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