lush

it is lush, this life,
lush with accidents and midnight moons,
car rides and grocery lists, appetite and
wishful thinking, the sound of our own voice
buzzing in our ears, locked doors and moths
hovering dangerously close to death, piano music
trilling out of an upstairs window, fear and opportunity,
the careless disposal of compliments. it is lush with lies
and question marks, indecisions and impossibilities,
fortune and fury, the startling whiteness of eyes, the ringing
of unanswered telephones, retail catalogues, failure, whimsy,
the one mosquito we cannot seem to kill. this life is lush
with wind and silence, reams of lined paper, broken zippers,
socks in need of mending, apologies, lust, sudden disappearances,
the cold coming in, breaks in the weather, last-minute
plans, first kisses, farewells, rude awakenings, the words
we think of saying out loud but don't, one-lane roads,
bridges, last calls, rivers teaming with fish, vertigo,
choices, exit signs, tight spaces, electricity, deoderant,
toast, bedside healing, embraces, embarrassments, fresh air,
fucking, bird calls, receipts, pens leaking ink, bandaids,
worry, hope, green and yellow and red and orange,
casseroles, regret, cutting corners, chocolate,
goodbyes, kindness, i love you's and everything after.

there are fields of nettles and wild blackberries,
rain showers, bulbous clouds, endless patches of blue,
playground slides, sand castles, wet leaves, old piles
of firewood, spiders, skinned knees, wild throws
that somehow make it in, slides toward home,
ill-fitting jeans, champagne toasts, haircuts,
missed opportunities, bakery smells, 25-cent lemonade,
swimming lessons, shoelaces, friends, foreign countries,
implausible endings, the last letter in the shoebox
on the upper shelf of the closet that makes us weep,
eye exams, speeding tickets, airplane blankets,
handmade blankets, odd gifts from grandparents,
blisters, glasses of water, adolescence, waiting rooms,
bad spelling, cereal boxes, half-finished novels, longing,
hide-n-seek games, flimsy constructions, annoyance, anxiety,
high elevation, generosity, unmet expectations, panoramas,
juggling, first snows, final countdowns, merging lanes, investigation,
luminous mornings, faulty memory, kindred spirits, envy.

and so, my love, not a moment’s unraveling, no keening
of displeasure and lost chances, no mourning of all that
seems not enough or just barely or never again.
from the center of the darkest ashes there is
something reminiscent of the heat and light it took
to get here, even if the glory of first fire is irressurectable,
even if new wood must be gathered
even if another decisive match needs to be struck.