In dusty musty boxes
In the basement corner near the back
Papers yellowing with age
Edges curling crinkled
Ink is smudged and
Pencil smearing
Cardboard soft and slightly limping
Are the words that choke you
In the middle of the night
How the sunlight dancing through her hair
Is magic when she lifts her face to laugh
Because she had a thought which pleased her
So she glanced over her shoulder
When her eyes met yours you felt it
Underneath your bones
Electric
How her presence in the darkest nights
Her even softest breathing of her sleeping
On more than one occasion anchored you to life
When her hand brushed up against yours
Fingers intertwining
Held you steady as your fears came creeping
That her touch banished them from sight
How the glimpse of her turning dancing movements
As she measured out a song while she was cooking in the kitchen
And her voice would sing along
That the joy arising from her gave you one more thing to love
About a life that had been dark and wary
Stressed and sacrificial
Maybe she never knew how she was balm to healing pressures
Maybe she never saw her worth beyond a budgeted refusal
Frugal and self reliant
She fixed and healed and tidied
Maybe she wept at times for lack
Maybe she questioned every penny of her worth
Maybe she longed for one more word of kindness
Maybe she wished for a hand which reached her heart
Maybe she knew
How every day you counted her first among your blessings
Some pages in the boxes stuck together
Moldering in cardboard splitting at the seams
Bending breaking open
Spilling letters onto concrete in the basement of your heart
The words running together
In wild fantastic herds
They have galloped across the plains into the forests
Grazing underbrush of lines growing thick
Around the trembling trunks of trees
All the poetry you feel is falling floating down
Drifting in paragraphs
In autumn colors just like leaves
As you trace the patterns on her hands
Watching wrinkles crinkle careless at the corners of her eyes
As she gazes at the antics of the chipmunks just outside
Maybe her smile is warmer, brighter when her glance meets yours
Maybe she reads each unsaid word there within the light
Glowing from within the silence of the corner boxes
In the basement near the back
Spontaneously combusted in the twilight of your life
As the flames dance and spark there
Behind your eyes
All the things you never told her
Flickering tendrils in the darkness
Became her hearth and home
