Us

I am thinking
about all the things that I like
about you,
about us;
Like how you don't go on the Tube
so we get buses
or walk
and find weird pubs
and Dickensian street names
and see random celebrities
who would never have got on the Tube either.
I like remembering how excited you got
when you bought that Spiderman sleeping bag,
never mind that your legs were too long for it
so sleeping in it meant you were freezing cold,
but you loved the matching pillow that came with it
even though you thought the label on it
was a moth in the night.
Or how you get really competitive
when map-reading
'cause you know your way around a city street-finder
better than anyone I know.
I like thinking about
how you call yourself a slow reader
but what you do read
you take in and pore over,
and get really enthusiastic about
and read whole passages out to me.
I like how you adore the Saturday paper,
and read out every item you find interesting,
whizzing through the supplements
while I am still digesting my first article.
I like how happy films make you,
and how you know all about the directors
and what they worked on in the past,
how you guess the Bafta and Oscar winners
and are almost always right.
I like how we can have involved discussions
about the characters on Coronation Street
as though we live there too
and know them all intimately.
I like how you love classy older women
like Lauren Bacall, Meryl Streep, Eileen Atkins.
I like how good you are at accents
and that we can have a whole phone conversation
in pseudo-Russian.
I like how you hate Valentine's
and that you would prefer to be romantic
on any other day.
I like how you always, always laugh
at the way tiny dogs' legs walk
and that I can see it coming
when a terrier approaches.
I like that you are unique,
a one-off.
And
I like that you like me too.