So little time for poetry

(By guest author Sam)

We planned a big family party for Valentine's day, so our personal celebration of the day was simple---some flowers, a special treat at breakfast, and so forth.  But Marilyn left me this poem she wrote, one she'd worked late into the night to finish.  She likely wouldn't share it so I will, mostly because I think it's such a great insight into her character and our relationship.

Translations

Between the tears and bears and scribbled walls
I can find little time to shout (as I
would have to shout, or interrupt myself
to find the shoe; acknowledge comments; try

to put the lid back on) to you the way
a yellow curl of smoke washed the moon green
and how I wished to wake you in the dark
but watched you sleep instead, eyes quick with dreams.

All day I thrash in oceans full of words,
too slow to catch the drops before they’re gone.
At night, the dreams that flash behind my eyes
are softer than they were, and fade with dawn.

There is so little time for poetry.
We will grow old, I know, and it will keep.
But read it, if you can; the way I stretch
myself against you even in my sleep.

The way I turn at your step on the stairs:
How anything I once gave up has thinned,
shifted; reappeared changed and whole, to wrap
its shape around the two of us like skin.