Tuesday, April 7, 2015

The Living Room

Stretched across the living room chair
I read chapter one, the book opening to
an old man stretched out across
the hospital bed in his living room

waiting to die.
And hearing laughter I look up
to my wife, knees up in the recliner,
smiling, making faces at the baby, and

I love her.
I love her as an old man looks back
on his young bride in a dream, as she was,
just so on some unparticular evening.

I love her, bright eyes shy, wondering
why I am staring at her that way,
memorizing the ordinary eternal moment.

I love her, living and young,
a present beauty on the fleeting pages
between the first chapter and last.

I love her, the woman in my living room
beside the hospital bed.

The one from which I awoke.