For my wife on my 40th birthday
Crumpled bedcovers heap like crude sculptures in the angled sunlight
Yet warm but already forgotten as the Saturday begins
The comforting warble of a television, the burble of a coffee maker
The hum of the washing machine, the crackling of bacon
Consume the silence today as every day.
Rolled up in the back of the closet are the leather boots
The sheer stockings, the videos and the travel brochures
Bills and insurance notices splayed over the pine table
That once bore a vase of stately roses and a note
Of apology, or congratulations, who can remember which.
The new too burgeoning and bright to spare grief
Nor is the old completely gone -- it surges through the cracks like vivid weeds
Found in the corners and soft whispers and passing touches
It will return. And when it does the interlopers will be missed.