What did we know then,
speaking of love as if
it were something different
than washing the dishes
and making the bed,
as if it were somehow above
changing diapers and fixing
the gas leak. It was such
a gossamer thing, so glittering,
so untamable, so full of flame
and it is that, too, but I would
not give up these days
of hoeing in the garden rows
while you pull dandelion heads
and we look at each other across the fence
with half laugh and three quarters exhaustion,
and there is so much devotion
in the way you carry the soaker hoses
down from the garage. There is
tenderness and passion in the
way I cook the broth or mend
the skirt or press the shirt. What a blessing
to be servants of love.