Standing Rock Nocturne

for Noah

Tonight, our books, our blender, our bed, these small talismansof domesticity, and you, feel far from the sigh of the patched

        camper window, its lung of Ziploc and electrical tape rasping        out the rhythm of the drums, the lilis and akishas; far from these stippled

curtains that feel, sometimes, like the whole universe; far from the pipelinepictures the kids taped to the cabinets' veneer. I wish I had hiked the frozen hill

        tonight for reception, called to tell you forgive me for not calling sooner.        No, I wish I had braved the snow to say every day is more

diffcult and beautiful than I could have imagined. No.I know, what I should have told you: I can be far from you

        because of you. I should have thanked you for the place you hold,        tangled (I imagine) in our cheap sheets, our ketubah still balancing

on its single nail above your head. Thank you, because I know I can return,crawl to you, asleep in our bed, and you'll murmur, shore me to the steady

        beat of the blood in your chest. How I'll whisper about the one wasp        who lived with me here through all of October. How gently it rested,

nights on my cheek, how we would both have faith we could staystill like this: learn not to hurt one another. Thank you for tending

        our houseplants in my absence, even the Christmas cactus        we thought was dead, for your unflagging belief in the bright

bloom that comes suddenly during seasons of snow, and for your handskeeping each small thing alive, turning each pot toward the sun.