Brittle hands remind me
of empty football fields,
picnic tables with candles and roses,
pompous little yorkies,
laughing until we become ourselves,
embracing at the dawn of the new year,
dreaming up the lives we could live,
big conversations on small apartment furniture,
Paper Planes by M.I.A.,
crooked gravel driveways,
vacuuming carpet stairs,
fried chicken and waffles,
fanning towels at the kitchen smoke alarm,
nearly dropping a piano down a flight of stairs,
listening to you play piano from downstairs,
picking out a rocking chair,
picking out names,
building a crib,
nights we spent on a mattress in the living room,
nights we finally spent asleep together,
filling boxes with things we forgot we had,
placing boxes somewhere they’d never been,
waking up to birds chirping,
falling asleep to engines revving,
painting rooms,
for the third time,
laughing,
crying,
hoping,
praying.

Brittle hands remind me of how wonderful my life is.