I’d bet I could get at least $600

For my kids

Maybe get a nice portrait tattoo of them laughing

I’d tell people they were lost in a parade float incident

Look at the picture on my arm and smile

Remembering

Why I sold them to the Circus

Know that there is Love here.

Always.

Know that my heart remains

Locked in a low closet

Wedged between old shoes

And a box of tarnished necklaces

And rings

That I gave you when we were young.

That heart belongs to you.

Warm meat and swollen ventricles

Ready to burst at your touch

Waiting endlessly for your appraisal.

You unlock the door

Dig through the box

Take out a pair of old Chucks

And leave my heart

Anxious,

Troubled,

And overwrought.

But when you return

You take it from its nest

Hold it to your face

And feed it with your tears

Regale it with your tales

And fill it with your dreams

It goes content

Back into the darkness

Into the breath of stale insoles

And the weeping of forgotten memories

To wait

To ponder

To wish

For just one more moment of You.

And it lives here

Love

Always.

14 Brilliant years
How many days has it been?
I guess it could be counted.
Reckoned by multiplication of years and weeks.
Levied from the number of nights the moon has shone down
And passed out, full and content
Since the first night, so many moons ago.
It seems a hundred years, if not a day
Each a blessing that my eyes still open
Because of you. Because of what we’ve made
Because every morning these eyes open to see you
or, at least,
the imprint of you
Fresh on rumpled sheets
How many days have we been here?
How many nights have I fallen asleep with your breath on my face
on my neck
Hushing me to sleep with the comfort of your soul
Daring me to neglect that soft, sweet and so delectable flesh
in favor of the promise of dreams of the same
and a half hours extra sleep to face the day.
How many nights have you held me
in your arms
or in your mind
remembering the thrill of first love, first embraces
first long brushes of trembling lips.
So long ago
And yet the only things still fresh in my mind
Tell me how long it’s been
Or forget the question
Or answer with that smile that still lights my heart and my fires
It doesn’t matter that it’s the 9th day
or the 14th year
or the 5,113th poem I’ve given you
Today is still the first
As every day has been the first
The first day I’ve fallen in love
Every day
Since the first day
We met

A poem for my lovely Elizabeth Leigh

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