This is the Love Poem, Mid-Life
for Super Guy
“Who, being loved, is poor?” –Oscar Wilde
Remember the night
I woke moaning, ankles on fire,
some ghost gripping my arches,
preventing even a twitch
of toes, a wiggle’s wriggle?
You rolled without hesitation
from the warmth
of our layered nest,
cast aside your beloved pillows—
the ones I criticize
as too many, too much,
more than one person’s allotment—
returned five minutes later.
You’d googled my symptoms
and coming up dry,
empty handed,
you said there is nothing
and I knew you meant exactly this:
Love isn’t always articulate.
but you crave my laugh
like sunshine.
You can always tell
when I’m seeing spirits.
It’s OK to rest—
the world doesn’t turn
on my To-Do Lists.
I am enough,
have always been more
than you dreamed could be yours.
You adore the daughter I birthed,
who is now yours, too.
You’re sorry you get grumpy.
Everything will be OK.
And then my left foot thawed,
my right began to twitch,
you resumed sleep,
eventually I did, too
and we never spoke of it—
that midnight truth telling
when you, the anti-poet,
wrote a three word sonnet
that grew my heart—
there is nothing—
and I knew without doubt
it was everything.
–words and art by Melinda Coppola