It was the night before last year's Valentines Day, and Rachel and I went out for a rare dinner and movie date. Money was a bit scarce. I had just bought a print for us, by an artist friend, of two birch trees gently intertwining. It cost $300, but I was in love. Wouldn't you know, I got an overdraft notice that afternoon from the bank.

We choose an Indian restaurant in Minneapolis, figuring not many people will think of celebrating Valentine's Day Indian style. When the waiter, named Dinesh, stiffly presents us with our menus and leaves, Rachel whispers that he doesn't seem to have much of a sense of humor. But I hold out for him. "He's all right," I say.

We order wine, my first drink since suffering a stroke two weeks earlier. What a difference it is, to be wearing clothes and drinking generic merlot in a nice restaurant, compared to that hospital robe and hospital bed.

We order our dinner, telling Dinesh to cook our food no spicier than mild-to-medium. "We are from St. Paul," I say slowly. No reaction.

So I tell Rachel her about my poetry reading earlier that morning. The downtown mall thought a reading about love would spur sales. When it was my time to read, people were passing before me like traffic at a major intersection. The sound system was loud and hollow. But this was what I told the shoppers:

"You know, it's funny to be reading here. In all my experience, this is the first time a store has tried to make money off free verse. [Wait for laughs, none come.]

"Our topic today is the decline of the love poem. Today's poets write very few poems about the love we feel for our chosen ones. This failure began, oddly enough, in the Romantic era, when poets redirected their attention from what was around them, to what was going on inside their heads."

I'm going great guns, and Rachel lists to my monologue with eyes glistening. Dinesh brings our dinner, which is spectacular -- a dozen little dishes and sauces and chutneys and breads. I continue with my speech at the mall:

"The reason poets don't write love poems," I said, "is that they love their muses more -- their imaginations. It's one reason poetry seldom seems to matter any more. It's not about love for others. It's not a gift we give readers. It's like masturbation -- fun, but unromantic.

"I have a special insight into this issue because I found out two weeks ago that I have a brain tumor. They say it's not cancerous, but it may have to come out. I'm afraid of the tumor, and I'm afraid of the operation. I'm forgetting a lot. I have lots to lose besides my life.

"What if I lose my IQ? Or my sense of humor? What if I lose my muse?

"And I'm asking myself, Which is more important to me, my muse or my wife? And the answer is -- my wife. Poetry only wants you at the top of your game, when all your faculties are clicking in perfect synch. But even if I come out of the operation washed up as a poet, Rachel will still love me."

I'm telling Rachel all this over tandoori chicken and naan. I'm very pleased with my public proclamation. She just shakes her head.

"You're full of it," she says. "If you love me more than your writing, why do you write all the time?"

I nod, and think about all the times I head upstairs to clatter on the computer rather than climb into bed with her.

"But," I say. "If I come out of the hospital a vegetable, you'll still love me, right? Whereas I'll probably never hear from my muse again."

"You'll probably be OK, you know," she says.

"Sure. But if worse comes to worse, you have power of attorney. If I'm really bad you can pull the plug on me. If I'm just pretty bad, you can put me in a home. All I want is that you come visit me sometimes. I mean, I would want you to have a life, maybe get married again."

For a moment there is silence, as I push the basmati rice with a fork.

"You know," Rachel says, "if you vegged out, you could still live at home. Even if, worst case, I began dating again, there's no reason we couldn't still be together."

"Then it's settled," I say. I ask Dinesh for the bill. He gives it to me, and I give it to Rachel. "Handle this, dear," I say. Dinesh cracks up. "See," I tell Rachel, "I told you he had a sense of humor."

After dinner we go to a movie -- Shakespeare in Love. Rachel and I have a ball watching it, whispering excitedly, shoulder to shoulder, giggling.

A man sitting in front of me turns around not once, but twice, to insist we put a cap on it. I spin him back around with a twirl of my finger:

"Just enjoy the movie," I said to him, as if I was doing him a favor, as if it wasn't his fault he couldn't recognize true love -- "please."

[Mike and Rachel are still together and well in Saint Paul, Minnesota.]

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