December Poetry

List

For Annie

 

For a while it was a fortnight

Never passed without a hang

Cocktails and tea, four or more hours

Friendship forging through effortful days

Evenings of presence a gift to ourselves

To each other

To the Goddesses of time and bond

 

Always the list—

A rubric, a commonplace—

Of every notion impenetrable

Every thought and question unhinged

Until placed on the plinth of our council

Adjudicated with care and giggles

Rolling eyes and knowing grins

 

Updates on tangential dramas

Political failings

Parental niggles

Fanfictional happenstance

 

The daily pebbling between us

A proof of life

A proof of desire

For the next rarified moment

Of reunion

Of regard

Of rest

 

But as life comes on

Nothing is so scheduled as a mother’s day

Or a single gal’s litany of chores

So we make little, diamond hard promises

That we wear on our fingers

Wedding bands

That never needed pawning

 

Give me that woman that is not

Fashion’s thrall and I will wear her

In my heart’s core

As I do thee