To kiss you at midnight – at ten midnights
of ten January firsts; at thousands of moments
in hundreds of mundane days; in dark,
and dappled sun, and burning brightness.
Well-packed suitcases, a second language,
weeks and months abroad with foreign booze,
tanned limbs tangled on crisp white hotel sheets.
To learn to hold a baby, or a job that affords me
expensive bras and last-minute plans: road trips,
days wasted playing cards, reading, making love,
and climbing Munroes in our ugliest clothes.
To decorate a Christmas tree together, to argue
and glitter through Decembers, chapped hands
held tight, and wax-sealed homemade cards.
A home. A little flat, with you, one day
a house: weeds blooming in the garden,
a wood fire, a piano, and a typewriter filled
with empty sheets ready to be poems.