CALL ME BELOVED

We took shelter from the cold last night
in drafty restaurants, reminiscing with
whiskey in our glasses about our childhood,
all of the memories suspended in sunbeams
in our minds as we breathed them into life again.

It’s one of the comforts offered in recollection,
that while we remember halcyon days
in amusement parks, hazy afternoons
and freckled summer skin – they are all
rid of their flaws by the passing of time.
Sitting around the dinner table, they warm us.

This is the duality of memory, the sin
and the grace of forgetting. There are times
when the imperfections are the keystone
to the whole core of ourselves, the very
last thing we should let slip away.

I awoke to your voice under heavy blankets,
the silence in your home enveloped the morning
in a satiating calm. I stepped onto the cold hardwood,
satisfied by tranquility, determined to write this –
determined to never forget.