(for my wife — )

I wouldn’t write monologues
If I knew how to have conversations.
With her, I know how –

Closeness, where
The necessity of distance is
Understood;

Distance, where
The reality of closeness is
Felt.

The younger man’s hunger to always be joined, and
The older man’s desire to always see her flourish;
To see her safe to give full play to her own powers
So long as life’s vicissitudes allow for it.

The perpetual amazement of knowing someone
Wants me to cause me pleasure;
The unceasing desire to be her pleasure,
Or her sounding board,
Or her solace, as needed.

In a bare room, she is
The only decoration required;
And when she is deep in thought,
The world slows itself into kindness.

We only get so many spins of the Earth;
Eventually, it flings us off —
But when the day comes
That this planet travels on without me,
I will have known the miracle that is
The creation of a new whole universe of reality

Out of two people