for Eric on our 31st Anniversary
then you said, “you should move to Telluride
after you get your degree,” and I said, “I was
thinking of going into the Peace Corps,”
and you said, “or you could move to Telluride,”
and I said, “I don’t know about living in a resort,”
and you said, “I live in a place so beautiful
everyone in the world comes to visit,” and I said,
“okay,” but what I meant was, “I’m scared, and
what if I put all my dreams in one basket with
your name on it and the basket unravels,”
and so I said, “I’ll find a place to rent,” and
you said, “it’s way to expensive, you should
move in with me,” and I said, “okay,” but what
I meant was “I’m scared because I love you
and what if you see who I really am and decide
you don’t love me anymore?” and now it’s been
thirty-one years since you said “I will,” and I said,
“I will,” and then came walking in starlight
to treeline and gathering snowmelt to drink
and long hikes in the desert and skiing through
spruce trees and losing who we thought we were
and growing sweet Cresthaven peaches
and sitting in shattered silence and
building raised beds for Finnish fingerlings
and holding each other through long nights of tears
and letting the rolls rise on the counter and
waking to discover we’ve become exactly who
we are together, two selves who could never
have guessed how they would be re-shaped by love,
and I wasn’t wrong to be scared all those years
ago, it is so big, what love asks of us, a shedding,
an utter unraveling and reweaving of self,
a struggling, a merging, an ongoing becoming,
come, stand at the edge of today with me, sweetheart,
I am who I am because you, because loving
you, because we, because you dare to do
this glorious, scary thing and love me, too.