I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

You don't love me like that.

I heard someone say several seats away on a crowded A train.

My ears perked.

I kept my eyes directed upright at an ad for a bank that stretched across the ceiling

of the entire train car.

She sounded brash, unapologetically loud, accusatory.

But then I heard the breaking of a smile in her voice.

I heard her teasing her companion.

Look at how he's staring at her.

Look at that.

You don't love me like that.

And what I could gather, they were a couple flipping through a fashion magazine together.

I went home and wrote down the phrase, you don't love me like that.

I was intrigued by the declaration at once, complaint and challenge.

I was fascinated too at how the woman stretched out and emphasized the word that to perform

her critique.

Many of my poems had their starts as bits of public conversation like this.

At a table, next to me in a cafe, I once overheard a priest talking to an engaged couple

just before their wedding.

She said, their lives before each other were like, quote, waiting for eternity to enter

your arms.

...