The Reckoning of Ordinary Kindness

We do not always begin again
with the same effervescence
of the enraptured
early days
when beginnings
were not
so asymptotic.

I admit-
I demanded
restitution!
What love was this?
Bedraggled
expectations.
I cried.
interring hours for sleep,
watering cajun marshland.

but someone

       held the end tables
       and the carpets
       and the sky.

Space between us on the cushions
Eyelids, taped open
We witness.
A fruit fly raises a leg, drinking bloodshot

We continue
on.
Not needlessly.

One of us walks the dog.
The other places meat in a pan.
so there is food
To eat

I book us a trip
Stomach digesting my ribs

And rest a cheek on his arm

He runs a bath
Silently begins my taxes

And rests his hand on my neck

While we wait
for things
we used to have
before

we needed
to begin again

Not so effervescent,
fine.
But graciously,
divinely
instructed
and sustained

On the reckoning
of ordinary kindness.