French toast stuffed with cream cheese,
topped with a strawberry, blackberry, & lemon zest reduction.
A pitcher of beeritas waits for noon in the fridge.
Tim & Katie are coming to watch the Preds in the Stanley Cup.
My godson nurses in the next room
while I cook breakfast for my best friends & the woman
who affirmed in me the mercy of silence.
She traveled east, the length of the country, to free herself.
I wrote a song for each friendship
I would abandon, then searched for the route to any new life.
Depression didn’t drown her.
The blood clot didn’t kill me. We took a decade to live
our way into this happiness.
What is the cost in joy of freezing the still unfolding story
as all that abundance begs
to be gathered from the jaws of this world? What is a picture
worth without the flavor,
the dizziness, the embrace? We close our eyes to better taste
the acid on our tongues.
In this moment, we choose sensation over memory.