She is fireworks over a city that sits like candles torchlit and like flames.

She is a walk on a quiet street in the dark with murals of Dylan in her head.

She is quiet glances out a window, sleep drifts, warm against me in the rain of our devotion.

She is life as I never saw it, see it, predict it. She is my future from 50 years ago.

She is a summer lawn, a winter bay, an autumn sway in another way, another time and place.

She is a magnet for my heart, and everything broken in it, my focus, my angel, my precious attribute.

She is the most beautiful gliding reflection in a shop window, hands clutched, hearts forever touched.

I need to unbreak my soul and always turn to the wave. I remember Myrtle Beach and the way the ocean called.

She is wet in the rain and dry in the sun, when I always come undone. She is tonic when I am nerves.

The voodoo vibes laid out at her feet; she lifts me up to forest canopies and says: Here is the sun.

And pushes me through.

We walk on broken sidewalks, the world is loud, then the world is quiet. We cling to each other like frustrating wrap. There’s blue elephants and precious wood. There are pictures of mushrooms and phallic Mexican holy ghosts colored like an acid trip. Beyond a movie-screen window there is a circle of ceremonial people playing out a nervous drama. Fidelio.

And when I walked into the dimly lit kitchen of dawn today, I knew I never wanted to be alone. I knew I needed her forever, again and a million times again. From the edge of the ocean to the edge of never-ending space. She is the one.

Outside the old windows of the house, the world is new white, the houses are white or red brick or yellow boards. There’s a peacefulness in the asphalt. There’s the temperature gauge that is the rain against the window. A weeping willow prays invisible. A city awakes and people break, and people save, and my heart plus more quietly sleeps as I rake through the leaves of my mind. Maybe my name should be Tumble. Maybe my game should be Clue. Sometimes I don’t have one. I forget and forget and forget. I fear fading. I fear leaving her behind. I fear the bad trail I leave at times that she must walk and tether to. Then she shows me steak rub in a fudge shop. She smells like candy and love and warm kisses. That smell that binds us, passionately blinds us. She reaches out for my hand and takes me along. This life together.

We sit across a table from each other seeing March Madness and human madness. Our future, our past, our forever more reflected in all those pizza souls. She is my shelter in all those storms. Just breathe. Just love and let love. We walk up that quiet dark street. Her and I are the only ones in the entire world at that infinitesimal second. The funeral home turret looks like a haunted elf cap as its tip points to a streetlight moon. A hand moves aside a white curtain in a high window. I’m afraid, but I’m not. She thinks I’m being silly. I am. Because I can, and I don’t feel uncomfortable. That’s one of the greatest gifts one can give, receive. I don’t want to be awkward like llamas in the highlands of New Mexico.