Second Cup 4

There were years I thought our story
had as much to do with timing as with love,
years I thought we’d never make it through.
Then, of course, there are
the years now entirely lost unless
I’m drifting through scrapbooks.
Pam O’Brian
But lately I’ve been thinking
about you--
how your hand holds the coffee mug
how the edges of your eyes crinkle when you drive
how we still lie in bed at night
wrapped around each other like Smoky Mountain quilts,
marvel over the boy and girl who
put together the high school yearbook,
laugh remembering the Easter you scared
the children with that pink insulation bunny,
wonder how we’ll do
when these aging limbs stop working,
when the terrifying disease hits.
I don’t know.
Perhaps the children were the reason we stayed
through the careless summer days.
But now, now
you are the reason I will still be there
when winter ices in
and you are the map
to those few things
I do know about love.