This has something to do with
the tap tap tap of an early morning dream,
with traffic rushing by and people who talk too much
and jet exhaust and red-tailed hawks,
with plum blossoms every February
and then hard rain.
This has something to do with the curve of future plans,
with Esalen, Constantinople, Positano, the French Riviera,
with trips that may never be made and hope gone awry,
something to do with fires, full lunar eclipses,
and sudden gusts of wind blowing down fifty-year-old elms.
Something to do with nests falling out of trees.
This has something to do with swimming all the way to the raft,
and lying on hot wood with silty water drying on your skin,
a hand flung over your eyes to keep out the sun,
with wars and babies,
with uterine cancer and a nice calm game of draw poker,
with birthdays, and friends,
and just-missed trains.
This has something to do with cedar and spring bamboo,
with the shades of green and yellow in a sun-struck cornfield,
with the gaze directed at the horizon and balance.
with how improbable it was that I met you
because of a broken hinge on a broken door
now the door to our bedroom
made lovely by your hands.
This has something to do with how I still miss him,
especially on June days when the sky is clear to the west,
with how wrong it was that he should die at only 49,
tall and strong and loving the ocean almost more than me.
And this has something to do with my love for you.
© Judy Bebelaar
published in The Widow’s Handbook
