The sun moved most of the way
across the sky
as we traveled back from Richmond.
Our voices will
stay stuck in my head as we sang
choreographed
lights colored
our hands clasped,
Hoping nothing would ever save us from this.
If anyone ever tried to see it from the outside they’d likely be too distracted of the volume of my voice
to know that you’re
shoulders are just as red
as any, and rarely unoccupied
But also my hand
will wait there, as we walk through crowds, so
I never lose you
,as we left, under the marquee.
The wind whipping
through the car as you slept while my hand rubbed your head
is the everything of everything
that I have ever had.
It started out simple enough, one
Dimple and freckles in our ever
Ending lack of time. I showed up late and
Didn’t see the harm until I saw one in a figurative sense
And felt my eyes light up as she leapt into
My arms. We kissed like it was how it’d always
Been; and then she pulled away a bit and
Considered whether this was cosmic gratitude
Or a horrible accident—So, to answer the
Question on your eyebrows: yes.
I’d suffer the organic dissonance to end up here
Again.
I won’t remember most of what I said before
I said the lot to you. The mind I had has been
And doesn’t want to anymore. Who would
Brightly, choose to walk a grown-in pass, shoeless
Second to a field of broken glass?
I’ll be the willing practice for whichever
Duty beckons her today (Except the dentist,
Though it’s what she wants to be)
And now a second (but MY added third)
Completes this perfect square. I’d love to
Deny my angles, but my nieces will tell you
I know everything, and they’re right.
So while we above you seem to
Constantly scream (and do nothing else but
Hover), when nobody’s looking,
While we love in disagreement
And talk over each other
And I approach the altar
And I kiss you on the cheek,
Will you remember what we can’t
Just enough so that she can, and always?
My little twin will,
I know already, ask me next week
what my favorite day ever was,
and I’ll lie,
because this morning
won’t sound like much
when I say it out loud.
I don’t secure the door locks more than once,
In homage to some threat that seems to hide
Round any corner. Make no mistake, though,
I, too, feel the breath that almost whisks
My cheek, or tickles down the recess of my neck.
My rituals are shrouded in facsimiles of confidence.
For all intents and purposes, they’re sprayed
With common sense: a touch behind the ear
Will keep the stench of consciousness away.
“I’m fine!” I’ll say, without the weight of pretense.
I keep a proper distance and maintain a polished form
When I prepare for sleep at night. I double-check the door.
I sometimes always walk outside to ascertain the state
Of all the yards, the neighbor’s lights… I never balk at
Critter’s eyes if they glow in the dark.
Which is to say, my rituals are ground in common sense.
I’ve found consistency reminds the things I might forget.
I won’t be cowed by superstition, or consumed by fear.
These daily check-ins with the nuts and bolts of staying safe
Suppress my apprehensions, keeping constitutions clear.
“Well done,” I thought—the one night we decided
(Maybe fifteen or sixteen) to stay up all night, when that meant
Exactly and only that. Weldon lived across the pike, and we
Hiked over that afternoon to develop some itinerary.
Without it, we set off, trekking the neighborhood, backyards
And driveways (this is getting closer to the present).
There Is nothing quite as hopeful…like—imagine you’re the most important
Reindeer in a pile of stuffed animals his mom kept stacked
Decoratively in the corner. That early morning,
I had the best sleep of my life.
The flame burst quick, and swallowed the roll of what
Might as well have been a candlewick, wrapped in cloth,
And soaked in kerosene, then thrown, headlong into a bonfire.
This instead was just a newspaper (and after 9/11, no one,
I think, for a while, cared who was born or dead.
It just came every day, so they read) which, masquerading
Briefly as a tower Dante couldn’t think to climb,
Rose into the sky, then blew just as far lengthwise.
She likes it when I read the ones she can remember
Easily. I read somewhere that that comes from anxiety
Brought on by parents, and other kinds of guardians,
Framing their lives in, and focusing far too much on time,
And what it takes to do things. (I think she’ll receive the brunt
Of that limp from me). But either way, I’ll still be up at 3, so let
Me bask in my current if not momentary largesse
beneath a squishmallow and something else. (I don’t know these kid things.
I think I’m lost). I’ll ponder such atrocities tomorrow; at the moment,
She is Frog—
—and I am Toad.
I’m finished singing
just as your
breath got
heavy. Both of you.
I pulled myself up
from sitting cross legged
and they’ve both fallen asleep.
There’s a breeze from the
ceiling fan
and two sets of headlights coast across both of your lips.
And it feels like again its the first time.
