to love x

what is it like to love you/.

i.

hands. trace the ridges, the whorls, the valleys

of yours. my, how they are familiar to rugged labor, yet how tender

they become with mine. how kindly they are with

the littles, as you prod their sides and

belly laughter spills forth. how you hold them open to a little

girl's and she clings tight,

and how you use them to throw him up onto your shoulders.

secure yet extending, balancing the unfolding.

ii.

the blurs. two hours on the phone feels like ten minutes,

giving me a taste of the sweet honey of eternity. 

last summer scooping water out of the tent,

the memory of who we were still rippling in the water. how fitting.

that's when i knew i loved you, even if it's tucked in a bleary throwback.

lingering calls, moments between you, old car rides.

iii.

unequivocal. removal of uncertainty manifesting trust through

a steady consistency. hand resting to be held. unembellished honesty,

not just in your fixed eyes, but set brightly within your heart.

meeting every morning with your words. 

you greet my tangled fear with gentleness

and the knots are safely loosened.

i cried when i opened that package and found

your hoodie tucked neatly in it. you're not always here,

but you're thinking of me.

iv.

the nearness. tucked in close enough to hear the blossom

of your heartbeat. i laugh within the flower fields of

your arms, joking about the frogs when i hear

a gurgle from your stomach. it had been nigh six months before i saw

you in Texas, a dizzy spin goodnight,

leaving my heart swelling to the brim in gladness.

every tired prayer before the sunder of the night. watching your

weary eyes over the phone. commitment of letters.

v.

starry eyed. outside a bar in salida. processing unit 61 on the couch. 

parked in my car after church. laying on a driveway in kansas. touring the

 cadre barracks. leaning against a boulder in grand mesa. the longer i stare at the murky sky, the more

stars dot the soft milky way. some nights hold the brush of meteors

and other nights are hushed in clouds. each sacred to me

in their distinct apollo 11 ways, each the evincing of your character.

more smitten with you than a star tilling over into

the sweet rebound out of supernova. 

/x