witness

I wish you could see this, me hovering over a breakfast
I woke early to make, ripe mangoes and coins
of sliced banana, blueberries, the smell of shallots
sautéed in olive oil, and the eggs waiting for the guests
to arrive to be gentled into the pan, then scrambled.
I wish you could have been here for the small catastrophe
I made of the scones, confusing baking soda for powder,
but how beautiful they were, despite their bitterness.
If you had been here, I would have given you a turn
with the crepe batter, guided your wrists through the swirl
of the pan, cautioned you against waiting too long and
we would have clinked coffee cups, toasting our good fortune
or the still heat of this place, flies catatonic on the deck,
or the way summer uncoils us, softens our grip, makes a smooth
line of our previous disrepair. I would have liked to show you
the fledgling grape vines, driven you to the market and stood agape
at the price of strawberries, wondered aloud if the trail
through the woods led to a waterfall, and turned off the final light
to listen to the concert of crickets. I wish you could be here
as the day unlatches and spreads open, and see the wide green
of the back field as the man on the small tractor makes his
perfect tracks, and sit under these motionless trees, and swat
the occasional mosquito, and read our books until the heat
lays us flat.

I have to remember that solitude doesn’t make the story
less true. The sun births the same sweat from the inside
of my elbows, and the cream has turned my coffee
just as caramel. I am still in love with the thinness
and roundness of crepes and the way they hold
so much more than their own weight.
If I can hold my hands through the quiet.
If I can bless the air with my own breathing.
If I can imagine the possibility of waterfall.
If I can bite into the flesh of this mango
and still know sweetness,
perhaps that is witness enough.