I sat on that porch
at least a hundred times,
imagining the stories
you once told us
on an empty night,
prolly while you faced
your own ghosts
of unspeakable truths.
You said, “Listen.”
And I did, but all I heard
were toads and crickets
and some coyotes far off.
Today I drive past that
porch, and something
tugs at every lifeline in my
body to just look over there
and dares me to still
breathe and to not cry when
I see us not sitting
on that porch.
You said, “Listen, that’s
God’s symphony playing just for us.”
And where there was once just
an empty night of random
creatures doing their own
thing, and you mourning that which
would never come, and
me foolishly believing
it would come to me,
I know full well, now,
with you gone and me
grown, that of all the places
we went to there on that
porch, not only was heaven one
of them, it was the only place
that’s ever made
any sense to me.
