Hindsight is a curious and sly mistress. Reflections of what might have been been play cruel tricks on the mind. It is for this reason that the poet rarely thinks back on this tempestuous night. Well, not as often as one might think. For even though the moon's light had playfully danced on the gentle waves that were rocking beneath the couple on the restaurant's dock, and even though the they had experienced one of those rare, blissfully private moments in a public space, the silence after the poem had been deafening. Waiting for those words. Waiting, exposed, under the probe of the light of the moon with the violent jolt of the waves that made the poet feel as though everything he had eaten at dinner would certainly be on the table sooner than the check. No, these moments, these seconds, whether it was 5 seconds or 5,000 seconds, they were the longest of his life and ones that he certainly did not like to recall. For it is in those seconds that every doubt, fear, question, and irrational insecurity bubbled to the surface of the cauldron of crazy within:

What is she thinking? This is what we wanted, WASN'T IT?!!!
She's looking like she's been punched. Did I punch her?
God, I feel like punching her, what's taking so friggin LONG!
It's the poem. GODDAM that STUPID poem!!!!
Who am I? I'm nothing. I'm an art teacher.
I'm a guy in a country in the middle of BUMBLEFUCK!
Who the hell am I? How would we even live?!
Should I ask again? What's she thinking?!

What was she thinking?