the only word i need

i look over at you
you driving the last half mile before the exit
where our quarter pounder with cheese exists
the one we both convinced ourselves we deserve
at exactly the same moment
without mentioning it to the other
and i think about you
the word "perfect".

my hand grazes your shoulder
as i walk past you
in saturday morning mid-putter around the house
moving on to fix some small thing
that we have both been noticing needed fixing
and the look i see in your eyes
as you turn your head to look at me
makes me think about you
the word "loving".

i watch you
cutting zucchini and making tiny puff pastries
for all of your fellow students
in your graduate program
the pile of ingredients and dirty dishes
and finished works of art in constant flux
on the kitchen counters
and i think about you
the word "selfless".

you are stretched out on the living room floor
buried in your binders again
absorbing reams of tangled proteins
and inheritance charts and psycho-social ramifications
misspellings in the recipes that make us who we are
and how to explain them to sick and dying people
and which words show the right evidence of your heart
and make the kind of difference you know you can make
and i think about you
the word "brilliant"

you have pulled the sheet
partly off your body in the morning
when i stop by to kiss you
and let you continue sleeping
before i go into work
and the intensely peaceful look on your face
as the fan gently flutters your hair
and the way your breasts look
nestled into your arms
makes me think about you
the word "beautiful".

the shape of the muscles in your legs
and the natural float to your steps
as i struggle behind you to run at your pace
on our "long run" past the tennis courts
the wisdom and the grace of your body
makes me think about you
the word "sexy"

i see you
i see so many of these tiny moments
and i hold onto
so many of these words
i watch you
and i want to make love to you
i want to make babies with you
i want to burrow down
into the depths of your soul
and feel its warm wings wrap around me
and sing me to sleep
i want to hold you while you cry
and stroke the hair back from your face
and kiss you until i find your smile again
i want you to fall asleep
and to wake up every day in my arms

and sometimes i do some of that
and sometimes only some small part of that
and sometimes i pass by onto the next thing
that needs to be done at that moment
without doing any of that
and leave you where you are
doing almost exactly what you were doing
before you noticed i was watching you
but all of those things and so much more
wash over me in that moment
all of those things i want to do
in that moment
i have lived them
and i have known them
and i want to do them again and again
and that makes me think about you
the one word "forever"

and that one word is almost
a perfect way to end this
almost
because i cant help myself
but to reflect it back onto you
and wonder if i could choose a word
one word for you to think
when you looked at me
no matter what i was doing
no matter if i was sleeping or awake
chasing the dog around the kitchen table
teasing you about spilling food on yourself
dancing awkwardly on purpose
trying to make you laugh
and the only word i come up with
is this one word
"worthy".

Remembering, once removed

-- For Mam maw and Pap paw Fite

I remember you telling me
Pap paw wanted to buy a ladder
when he came home from the hospital
just two weeks before he died
and somehow that made sense to me.
Like he wanted to get a head start on his ascension
like he wanted to get back to work
sharpening chainsaws
and building houses.

I remember dancing with Mam maw
to a song on a Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys record
in her living room and
how much it meant to me
that it meant so much to her
and how she remembered that about me
even later
after you and I divorced.

I remember the ice storm over Christmas
and covering Pap paw with my body
against the falling branch
that just missed us
falling next to us onto his driveway instead.

I remember the dream he had
when he was in a coma
(the coma your parents called sleep
so you wouldn’t worry about him),
the dream where he was trying
to take a nap on a dock --
a dock on a lake somewhere
he knew as a boy maybe --
and these guys wouldn’t leave him alone.
They kept pushing and pulling at him --
for the week or nine days he was in the coma –
and then finally he woke up,
and those guys were probably the doctors.

And the nap he wanted to take
Was probably the same nap
Mam maw had been trying to take
Ever since Pap paw finished with the ladder.
But your dad and your aunt --
and your mom and you and your brothers
and your cousins and your neighbors --
kept keeping her awake
because they couldn’t bear to lose her, too.
But she finally
managed to sneak off somewhere quiet
where she could relax just long enough …
You tell me the reason
Pap paw lived so long
in the hospital before he died
was that his heart and lungs were so strong
and that your kidneys and your liver can fail
and you can keep living --
but your heart or your lungs have to fail
before you can die.

And as I think of Mam maw
and about her breathing slowing down
like you described to me --
the way the breathing slows down as you are dying --
I can only imagine
that her lungs quit working first
because I remember how strong her heart was.

And your dad still has the ladder
that is now -- exactly, to the day -- a year and a half old.
And the house next door
that it leans against
is now -- exactly -- just a house.
And all these memories that we’ve threaded to each other
are twisting and waving in the breeze
and the ends of some of them
are now buried in the ground
and sometimes they pull on us to lull us to sleep
and sometimes they push on us to keep us awake --
and we aren’t sure why we need that ladder
or what song it was that we were dancing to
or exactly why the branches on our family trees
are falling or bent or broken in the ways they are --
but we always end up knowing something more
about someone else’s kidneys or their liver or their lungs
and maybe something, too, about our own heart.

(special thanks to heidi fite for her contribution and editing)