This was the year I thought I’d lose you
after the doctor said what he said, his voice
kind, his words like sandbags thrown
at our chests. This was the year the doctor
was wrong, and now that I have you again,
every day I should wake and look at you
like a Wyeth, the light on your face warm
as breath. And every afternoon when I find you
bent at your desk, I should burst into song
with the candied swagger of a boy band.
And every night I should applaud you to sleep
like a NASA engineer cheering the Rover
as it touched down on Mars. Yet how quickly
I’m forgetting, unable to hold how it felt
in that room, our hands pressed together,
not knowing there’d be another time we’d be
as careless with our minutes as confetti.