Forty-Something this Summer

It’s supposed to be raining this morning,
but I awake without the sound
of small drops trickling from maple leaves or
spattering the old tin roof
outside our bedroom window –

either would have muffled the clinking of
spoons against the edges of
glass cereal bowls that
filters up from downstairs.

Yet well past the hour when
I often find myself alone,
you are still beside me,
only breathing;

I watch your breasts rise and fall
under the softness of your light blue camisole,
its narrow strap rising over your left shoulder
into a blur of light from the south window.

Your birthday is two days from now –
early forty-something this summer –
I should get up and settle the children’s argument,
plan for a gift.

Anniversary

This morning,
our children surrounding you
as closely as the faded sheets,

you were not mine alone
to whisper,
to touch —

the years intervening
since that day
when the air was thicker, closer,
and I climbed down the rocks
near your parents’ house
to swim through the fog in the ocean,
a ritual cleansing of my own choosing.

Each breath of that morning
had been simple,
even anticipation ceasing —

perhaps succumbing
to its own inability
to describe any truth
but an assurance of
love,
holding us both
in unborn arms,
vast oceans,
and summer rainstorms.

Beside Me (Happy Birthday)

It has been twenty of your birthdays
since I first saw you walking
in the afternoon light;

you slipped away for a time,

but later
we floated in the
midnight darkness of the lake,
timidly watched the sunrise
from granite steps.

This day bears little resemblance
outside the presence of you and I
and want of a breeze;
others in between are half-forgotten,
depending on photos in an album
to remind us —

yet still I see you walking

and wish you might come
to sit down beside me.

Morning

Expectations dashed,
morning arises just the same.

We skirt the space from last night
and busy ourselves
in living —

I understand
the rain should taper off today.

—

There are difficult moments in much of what I write, but I have been reluctant to post something that doesn’t somehow tie up neatly. Not all moments do.

Entwined

Passing quickly in the morning
as you make lunches
and I rush to the car
isn’t what I imagined

that day we stood
in the old barn by the sea,

my hand gently touching yours,
and feeling every movement of the sweat
trickling down the small of my back.

Standing outside in the garden,
I didn’t notice the photographer
as we talked idly
between silences
about the softness of the rain —

though the pictures in the crimson binder
tucked up on the highest shelf
tell me he was there.

Let’s meet again in that garden,
where we can stand still,

my hand resting
on the laces that entwine
the back of your dress.

Simple Day

The circles from our meeting
have rippled out
across the years,
growing faint for a time
from interruption,
and then stronger still,
rolling though seasons,
gardens and snows
and the voices of our children,
over quiet mornings
and hinted joy.

Let me kiss your forehead
and touch your hand,
look outward toward the sea
for just a moment
with a half smile —
another wave on this
simple day.