One of the most
important things, to me,
I’d say. And
look
I’m sure whatever is whatever and it works
but here we are
with me and more things in life I’m learning about myself.
There’s my bedroom, the nursery and the kids’ room
And I never knew until now
the importance of sharing a hallway
but what I’ve found and look
I’m sure whatever is whatever and it works but
it feels like they may all
look the same
though they’re not. They look the same but they’re not. They all appear the same. So
when the villanelle becomes
the vignette and you stand staring down
the hallways and the
smoke bordering it. There’s no
fire.
The villanelle becomes the vignette and the complex becomes a tenth
becomes a sound of a little voice
asking for your hand
and a song
As the villanelle became the vignette became the villain in her sleep
And she needs another voice
in her head, another song to help her dream.

Since you asked
My thoughts have paused since you asked
Since you asked I noticed your
Fingers started to repeatedly, quietly
Compress and decompress the buttons
On one of our kids fidget toys you’re
Putting away

And I’m washing dishes, hunched
and
In the window over the sink I stare like
my reflection seeing the
reflected me getting
Everything I’ve always wanted
And I don’t know if there’s a word for that.

I don’t know if there’s a word for always
touching when we pass eachother
But since you asked we haven’t moved
So I’m standing in the distance
readying for your hand
to touch anywhere
I don’t know if there’s a word for knowing you’re feeling that too
but I doubt it.

“You know you’re not broken? That you don’t need to be fixed?”

I guess, really,
stuck isn’t how I would have
ever described it. Because
we were kids with our friends
when we went on our first voyages
in the car and then
we meant everything to other people
but even then
the sky would look purple over
nuclear plant when we came back
to town
and I always told you that even the sunset
could tell your favorite color
and the chemicals in the clouds
had nothing to do with me
noticing
the reflection in your eyes
looked like the earth if the green was
brown and the ocean
loved you like the sky. But
then we only meant everything to other people…

…we talked and the orange that lines
the hazel in my eyes turned more and more gold. But then we meant only everyone only to only other people.
So it wasn’t not nothing
when the wind whipped
through the window down 113 to 63
We didn’t know we’d buy out first home there
Down a nowhere street where
The creeks around flood all but this road liken you never seen before

Like the sky met the ocean for the first time and said, “let them live every day over their head”

The water rushed faster
than I was comfortable taking your brother out. he couldn’t walk yet.
Yet, my two Tarzan women
ignored me.
Barefoot, strong and loud
you both stomped to the
newly dubbed “jumpin’ rock”
as tree frogs and cicadas cheered
you on.
Your happy sounds screamed and echoed
in the gully
when with wet feet you both taught us
water lessons within
the chaos of is
the splash of how
the rushing of love
And the leap of now.

We started a fire
on the deck to make smores.
The wind moved through us and
your sweater tickled me arm as I
played your favorite
songs you like to hear me sing.
You poured the wine.
Every few moments
embers would crack off their logs and we’d
both wait, just an extra second, before stomping it to death, to see if it would catch.
We saw the trees sway in the gusts
enough to topple us, if they came down.
We felt the impending rain in the
infrequent tentative nature of
early summer storms.

I saw your hand
not burned, not crushed, not wet
Tracing the rim of your wine glass

We waited for morning and hoped for dark, as the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart.