Love is a drowsy hand
held beneath quilt
and long after it has gone
you remember
the familiar warmth
and though the day is raw and filled with white clouds
you walk the dog through the uncut grass
remembering how it felt
to touch.
Love is a pain, sharp between your ribs
as if blunted knife has found purchase
to imagine one moment in this world, without you
and yet, so often
love is a terrible morning, waking in disbelief
you no longer walk beside me.
Then love is all you have
to hold onto, when the day swells and charges
emptiness spitting her spite in your face
your only recourse, to reclaim, that drowned memory
of when you were both without suffering
no worn streaks of tears tracing your jaw
nor the wink of life fitful, in the candle of your eyes
stillness, in yet unbroken reverie
stretching forever, because we do not think
of what it is to love on the other side of life
or how in love we choose a certain fate
and even if we had …
young then and without knowledge
been challenged with some slip of truth
many years down a well traversed road
I know your answer would be as mine.
even if love is fleeting, never captured long enough
even if, as first leaves budding on bare trees
are the most frail
they herald the coming of a new season
courageous enough to live briefest
yet with the glory of an entire summer
never fretting over loss, for it is not present in that moment
we loved for always
unbroken in a circle of flowers emerging
from frozen earth come such wonders
as fragile as petals we hold
each, within ourselves