It Will Never Be Finished

tomatoes ripening on their green vines

laughter in the afternoon air

everyone you’ve ever loved

sitting at the backyard table

waiting to share food with you

But it’s only for a moment

I walk ten thousand steps to the top of a mountain

my friend and I fill the open air with laughter

But it’s only for a moment

In December, I watch the candles burn away to nothing

the river outside my bedroom empties into the ocean, and murmurs your name

in my dreams it leads me to you

But it’s only for a moment

When the first snow comes, I spend an afternoon in the forest

the cold is quiet,

the air is still,

the world feels empty,

and I am filled with your absence

but it’s only for a moment

At night, our limbs vine together

and I feel the pulse of unending time

But it’s only for a moment

When January comes, you are sick in bed

I look in your eyes and the days are filled with tenderness

But it’s only for a moment

We are apart, and then together again

I touch you, we dissolve

I don’t know where I end

And you begin;

I ache for this to be unending

filled with wine and my friends are reading poetry

We’re moving the pieces on a chess board

and dissolving in a conversation

About how there’s no me, or you,

or even a human soul

Sarah is having an epiphany about pomegranates

in the genesis garden

I’m pouring over

Talking about how the wasp loses itself in the fig

I’m breathing your breath

I’m imaging that you are all

my lamplights

And our awareness intersects at a twilight crossroad