Joey
My godson
His dad is gone,
Lives in Michigan,
Doesn’t answer the phone.
Little Joey came to
Visit me at work yesterday.
We ate pork tacos
He desserted on Yoplait.
On the drive home
He told his mom
It was the best day of his life.
So, I am a six-year-old’s man.
Two little eyes watching me
To see how he should be.
Couch Camping
A morning exercise:
We’ve been
Saying, face to face
What we love
How we feel
Appreciating
Appreciation
Me for her and
Her for me.
This morning we put a
Knit blanket over our heads
And on the couch
In our cotton tent
We stare eye to eye
“I feel like we are an electromagnet.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“I don’t either, but you make me feel
Like one.”
“I loved when you kissed me,
When I gave you pineapple.”
That makes her cry.
When we lean in to nuzzle,
Blinded in collapsing cotton folds
Of blue knit tent,
We bump foreheads
Before finding lips.
Thank You, Victoria
Thank you
Thank you for all the autumns
Thank you for your photographs
Thanks for growing so patient and so sweet
Thank you for saying “It’s the best I’ve ever had”
At so many of my homemade meals
Thanks for laughing at the jokes
Even when you know they’re coming
Thanks for all the wild sex
Thank you for your freckles and your breasts
Thanks for trusting me and taking risks along the way
Thanks for meditating next to me every morning all these years
Thanks for sweetly slobbering on my shoulder with your sleeping drool
Thank you for your perfect ringlet hair
And your sexy nerdy glasses look
Thanks for making chicken pie
Thanks for prizing what I value and for loving what I love
Thank you for saying “Yes” when I asked you 20 lucky years ago
Thank you for making us a son named West
And thanks in advance for the family and years yet to come
