It’s no wonder that we return
often to the water, that sustaining
element, to celebrate this unimaginable life.
So long ago in Italy, you bought
a bottle from me each day, & I scanned
them, smiling, as we let the register’s sounds
speak what we couldn’t yet say,
what we didn’t yet know.
Imagine how much of the Earth
has observed our gravity — a force
that compels planets & light, like the glow
of Paris as we ate gyros on a park bench
& learned that maybe time, too, could be curved
by this inexorable pull. The night heard
our song, & continues to.
In London, I asked for tattoos,
some beautiful declaration of us. Who wouldn’t
want to be art with you? Your no, of course,
led soon to a yes. Maybe denying permanence
guaranteed it. Aren’t we an easy bet?
Stability can quiet a leaping mind, leave room
for questions — is it the letter j, or a candy cane?
A broken shoe near a canal can also be a gift,
knowing our clumsy steps are in tandem,
& louder than before.
Moo, this world is for us — the aurora,
the long sun of solstice or temperatures
below zero. Or the way warm water bubbles,
a miracle from the ground, rising like the way
you build scaffolds to the height of my dreams.
Like those limestone stairs in Ischia, leading us
from the ocean, to a tangle of vines, to each other.