Now that I’ve been around you more,
I like you better than I did.
I don’t know what I waited for—
now that I’ve been around you more.
It took some coaxing to explore
the depths your prickly manners hid.
Now that I’ve been around you more,
I like you better than I did.

David Southward teaches in the Honors College at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is the author of two collections, Bachelor’s Buttons (Kelsay Books 2020) and Apocrypha (Wipf & Stock 2018). His newest collection, Queer Physics, is due out from Kelsay Books in the fall. Learn more at davidsouthward.com.