january, february, march

So much can change in three months, long enough for days to blur together, if you don’t stop to count them. 
Is it twenty Saturdays, that’s all, that defines the distance between my door and yours, where I could take off my boots and be home? So close, 
you could almost imagine, that if I left now, I’d arrive back then by dinner. All of these nights, your absence now familiar as I close my day,
Enough to forget you, you might think. Yet as regular the empty bed, your presence in the morning fugue, our last shared ritual.

Only twenty mornings is not so many. Spent in coffee shops 
mine long before you, now no longer. Like the boots and the ring and the necklace I still wear, 
or my dreams for the future, 
gifted, not returned. 
Back home, more gifts, all yours. 
Poetry, art. Of course, the only physical reminders you would leave behind, you at your best. 
Clay bowls, by perfect fingerprints shaped, hold keys and matches and memories. So many days. So many nights. Too many to number,

I no longer want to, 
let me cease counting.

Each night, a cream the tips of my fingers gently swirl into skin the way you taught me, under eyes that in the mirror transform into yours,
those fingerprints again,
I could apply my own sunscreen but always asked you to, a favorite excuse to bring your face close to mine, to feel gentleness and love in your touch.
No nights skipped, when one bottle is empty the delivery man brings another. Are we separated by only two, still? 
Your reflection in the mirror, still visible from bed, how long ’til you are ready to join me here?

I count sundried tomatoes as I add them to the eggs, spinach, garlic, onions.
When it becomes too much I sit down and count my breaths.
A candle, a ringing phone, a familiar fear of judgement.
I would call them reminders if I wasn’t already thinking of you.