January 11

One year short of a score,

we’ve been ours.

I still remember the moment we saw each other for the first time.

I remember seeing you see me and feeling seen in the best way

when your cue fell away from your body, in that navy and red striped Timberland t-shirt, khaki hiking shorts, and Tevas.

I remember the pristine white of my v-necked t-shirt over my good tits bra and flowing chocolate skirt with the turquoise wedges, and flamboyantly cobalt eye makeup.

I knew you would come to the bar to talk to me, was utterly charmed when you borrowed my lighter to light my cigarette.

Our first date the next night, jazz on the river with the picnic you brought for us, you reading my just-published poem out of the little magazine in my shoulder bag, the triumphant look sparkling into me with your one-word response:

Yeats

Sliding my heart into your hip pocket in one non-percussive syllable

Oh, how they tried to tear us apart, the jealous ones, eventually tiring of failing, adopting a pretense, none of it was real.

But we’re more real than cancer, and better, too.

The growth of our love is no tumor, no malignancy lives there, in this honest desire for the reality of this unit we’ve become,

friends referring to us as

their favorite couple,

Pearl calling you my free-range husband,

the way we’re received together.

This is no ordinary love.

Remember, the first night, in your bed on Papaya Street, when I saw us growing old together in this house we bought three years ago to be our forever home? I knew then, and I remember you felt it, too. Spoke up about it, the emotional connection you felt inside me.

Is it fair to call it a propsal when it was never a question? You told me you were going to marry me, then realized you hadn’t asked and didn’t have a rock in your pocket to put on my finger, hesitated, and said, “Aren’t I?”

It was never a question, never up for debate, this union of our souls, mates. I never felt like I just met you, instead like I finally found you after lifetimes apart, searching.

Happy anniversary, light of my world, song of my soul, love of my life.