“I want to do with you
                  what spring does to cherry trees.”
                                                
                                                — Pablo Neruda 


Now is the summer of my near-content. 

Somewhere else, the cherry trees have already passed
their prime, weeping pink & white blossoms that blanket
the green sheets of yards, the grey & dappled brown earth
of cobblestone—the beauty of a beginning coming to an end.

After the fall, tiny, green fruit take their place,
swelling, filling with juice & meat of life,
til what is green ripens to blood.

I am swimming this summer morning:  Warm enough
for shorts, a patterned tee—the breeze cool like it’s kissed
ocean waves & white sand, somewhere else, somewhere
remembering the press of the souls of your feet
in a land I’ve yet to see, in a distant past
I only see when you talk.

Cicadas shed their shells like songs
telling the story of your birth, your childhood,
the decades of a you that existed—lived—before
there was a me to mature in your mind.

I sit, knowing you are there, knowing you are here—
memories & untold stories like time-lapse video
of darkest pink peonies gathering dew in secret gardens,
your eyes blushing velvet black beneath long lashes
curling toward the heaven we create, your cheeks
dimpling, your nose crinkling when you laugh,
your eyes closing as your lips are opening
to taste me again.

I wonder how long the summer will last.
I wonder how the cherries will taste
in the season of harvest.

I wonder if it is easier to not know
you exist, or to know & to wait,
both knowing it will come—it will
all come—while we wait

& long
for more.

I know
there is no reason
to wonder, only
to know

now is the summer
of my near-
content.