Conversations Among the Ruins

You are so wildly alive
when you pace about
our room at six in the
morning,

calling the dog to
eat breakfast, with
your beard growing out

of your still chiseled
face and your hair,
blonde, rivaling

Medusa's snakes in
a flurry of non
direction.

It isn't so much how
you un warp my
straw or hold my

hand at breakfast
with just your

fingertips,
or how you build me
canvas or the way you

fall asleep when I
read you RMK. It's not
how you water the

plants when I
forget or the way
that you make

tuna salad
meticulously
for hours.

It was your voice
that I first knew
I loved, and how

afraid I was
to let you love me.
Everything else

just got in line
and followed.

The fear and
conflict and all of
those voices

that told me
what would happen
were wrong.

An orbit around the
sun later and I
wake up to you gone

taking Penelope
to breakfast, and I
miss you, but smile

at the small half
conversations
we have when I walk

in from work
well into the
dark morning.

I love you and our
baby Penelope and
our house and the

rocks and plants.

You are a man
that gave me
an art studio and

taught me
how to hard boil
eggs and I love

you in this gold
sun morning and I'm
grateful

for the voices
that are my own
that I listened to

instead. Because
there is not
fear here just a

hug and a cup
of coffee doesn't
change color

when you put in
the cream.

Strong.