I.
We don’t have air conditioning
or much in the way of a television
We sit cross legged, yours over mine, on the pasty linoleum
listening to the radio spit crackled news and bits.
I sip your lukewarm tea, caffeine free
we talk of ventures, taxes, life’s beauties…
I wake in the mornings
your hand breaches the blanket
stretching I take it.
You softly exhale
breathing softer still
lips a cursive smile,
forget a picture
mentally a fixture
nothing will compare.
She screams when I come up behind her
turns in fury then laughs uncontrollably.
Hums as she glides through quiet times
Eyes ablaze when her mind’s alive
Dances at shows, sings songs no one else knows.
A poet’s disease, she writes in her dreams
wakes with another
idea that I’ll cover
to sing as she falls to sleep.
I write songs for you
with lyrics too
singing off key
reactions of you reacting to me
absorbing it - unlocking this
smiling as each note’s missed.
You ask me to sing that song again,
the lullaby I played one month after we met,
“Candlelight, wash away,
dream through night of dreams we stay
grey together, frayed with age,
reverbs of this lullaby
resonate.”
II.
It was 8PM, Tuesday
Our apartment vibrating with music.
Instead of jazz, you played a quest that got that
I listened, walking to the rhythm
though the hallway to the kitchen.
You sat in your position
legs resting on the other chair
hair in a ponytail
skin fair
eyes wide open
That stare.
There was good news in the air.
I kneeled down beside you
brushed your lips
whiffed lilac fragrance
gave you a kiss.
Your fingers started tapping
a smile started cracking
playing piano on your torso
as the chorus came in.
Right then I knew,
we were having our first kid.
III.
There were children.
Beautifully terrible children,
rugrats, runts, rapscallions,
smiling, upset, and those hormones.
The fights came and went
usually your mom and Steph
while Keira read the paper,
and Jacob spent his teenage years
abandoning reason but his heart was there.
We grew from each other
no one more than their mother
whose capacity for love was unending
so far from what should be expected.
She said the moments of parenthood
were baked into classrooms, dining tables, casseroles and carpools,
but the memories that stayed
were the stencils we shaped,
the kids cut it their own way
sprayed the graffiti and pulled it away.
Teenage dried over adolescent paint
a portrait of our family
that no other artist could make
where only we could relate.
IV.
Each decade
your hand gets colder,
I get slower
my body aches
like a perpetual hangover.
We grow older
sunsets on our shoulders
when suddenly
cancer shakes our core.
It took ten months
in beige chairs
barely leather, we sat there
hand in hand
tracing lines
vines of emaciated blood vessels
versions of us in disrepair.
You pointed to one that faded
asked how I would survive
if you didn’t make it.
Silence came about
before I could speak out.
You said,
I want you to sing to me,
my lullaby before you sleep.
I’ll always be there,
humming peacefully.
She passed
and I learned
to wake
without her hand’s embrace.
To empty space.
∞
Our grandsons
stand strong
crashing through obstacles
minds to conquer
confidence to charge on.
Our granddaughter
is an explorer
whistling as she climbs trees
dropping her glasses
smiling in make believe
these moments barely seen
treasured by me.
Our children watch,
understanding who I see.
I go to their beds
recite different versions
of fables and tuck them in.
Eyes flickering, faltering
their minds like a battery
sucked and spent.
I retire to my bedside
grabbing the guitar at my feet
sing the song I’ve been playing
the past half century.
My door slowly opens
Lucy pokes her head in
says she dreamed she heard
trees swinging in the wind.
Bifocals elsewhere, she squints
ambles to my bedside,
climbs right in.
I start playing again,
softly her eyelids dip,
she lays next to me,
lips split,
faintly humming.
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