occurs to us like a new color,
like the idea to write a letter,
occurs like the morning of the accident.

The possibility of love rises like a blanket
shook out after a day at the beach.

The possibility of love is a child.
It's spring in the mind of one red bird.

Other possibilities make you stop and go.
The possibility of love is a working vacation.
It's a campaign without a manager,
a campaign with no election,
it is no campaign at all.

In Wisconsin in the 1950's,
wives in long jackets and bright work dresses
ran damp cloths along clotheslines'
Blue clouds blew by.
What the wives hung out to dry
was the possibility of love.

Richard Terrill was an Eau Claire resident throughout the 1980s. He is a winner of the Minnesota Book Award. The Possibility of Love is from Richard’s book Coming Late to Rachmaninoff and is reprinted here by permission of the author. You can read a bit more about Richard here.