A toast to the wild spikes of laughter
to the scrubbed dishes and waxen kitchen
to the arguments with seven-year-olds
and wives to the desire to punch a random
stranger when walking past him on campus
to the opinions like an Etch-a-Sketch
to the feelings like lights at an EDM concert
a toast a toast and down the hatch the little
yellow disk drops down from tongue to stomach
and like magic everything is the same and
everything is different everything is a photograph
color-corrected just a touch everything goes
from neon fire to hot coals everything is a level
surface after an earthquake everything is steady
and I can breathe and you can breathe
and the wife and kids can breathe and the dog
can breathe and no one blisters so a toast then
a toast to the heat lost a toast to the warmth gained