I think I love you most of all,
In the mornings when you convince yourself,
That my impromptu ballet performance,
Dancing around the outline of our dogs’ claims to our bed,
Must mean that I’m still asleep;
Entranced by a far away realm,
Where my sheet-dancing mean something more,
Than my legs are capable of conveying in the daylight.
After a half-hearted attempt to call Arrow away,
You always crawl back into our twilight den,
To scratch ears and,
When the day starts you off with enough
Sleep to last a nighttime,
Part my greasy locks enough to peer unto,
me,
Innocent, mute and smaller than you remember,
Disturbed only by the temporary,
Forgetting myself in a way that I could never bear
When awake.
But every time,
With your hand on my ‘sleeping’ cheek,
I can see your love through my secretly squinted eyes,
Beaming unto my barest of faces,
Unweathered by the tempest of time,
Judging me in the beautiful blinding light,
Like a divine prophecy:
“You are the words in my throat before,
My voice has a chance to choke,
On what you would have said better.
You are the should-be tired joke,
Which I’ve heard so constantly,
Yet hasn’t failed to make me laugh once.
You are the foreign family,
That I didn’t know I could miss,
Until I held it for just one moment.”