The things I hate hide in my knees and elbows, grit and dust,
half-forgotten, yet always with me.
But the things I love, I love even more as I age.
I love the way children hold half an apple
and inspect each shiny-brown seed.
I love the blue-green shadows on the lake that match
my husband’s eyes. How will I live if he dies?
Will each rosy moment today equal tomorrow’s pain?
Can I harvest these hours of beauty and feast on them as I die?

I shouldn’t waste time away from the ones I love.
Even the words I write worry me.
What is a poem worth?
Will anyone remember its face, its name,
or its first home, the heart it came from?
Will they remember the day they died on the vine of love,
or the lightning strike of lust
that came and left with the thunder —
when they rose from the dead, divine in their everyday moment,
alive to hate, alive to love?