Remember...

 

The time I mistook indigestion for a baby,

and the eyelashes on my cheeks

for the end of the world.

 

When I thought as I traded knitted caps for rain hats,

that you would slip off canvas for boots

so that together we may weather the coming storm--

one half a dry head, the other dry feet.

One the beginning, and the other the end.

 

I never knew the power of bare feet

until you stepped out into the rain.

 

The time I stood still to fill my lungs with the forest:

smoke mingling with moisture,

the smell of trees hissing in the way that

pans fresh off the stove recoil with steam 

beneath the oppressive stray of a steady faucet.

 

The time I woke up to the sound of cicadas 

with an abdomen as empty as the left side of the bed

while the summer cascaded upon the world in waves,

gently caressing salty skin with a rhythmic reminder:

 

that

 

this too shall pass.