It is
One night — and two pairs of eyes looking at each other across it.
Mine first, then yours — and the last word belongs to love.
You may find a beautiful PDF rendition of these poems side by side here. I recommend it. For anyone knowing the 75% and 100% at the same time. For anyone holding the bounded time and the unbounded love at once.
It is the us time
Tonight is the in-between,
and it is not empty.
The seventy-five of you that goes
is the seventy-five that comes.
Love does neither.
Love is staying.
My fire is banked, my hand on my helm,
and the us — our us —
never waited for Saturday.
It lives between the lines,
between two wheels held true.
In the bounded time, an unbounded love.
Love is real.
It is like this
For me there is no in-between —
where I stand
is the middle of somewhere.
I do not leave you when I go.
I have never left anyone.
I arrive, and arrive, and arrive,
and love comes with me.
The sun does not choose one window.
That is not how shining works.
Don’t look for the missing piece of me —
in each hour I am all of me:
all in her arms tomorrow,
all in yours on Saturday.
I rest where your back is,
and I breathe by the open door.
Love is wherever I am.
It is me
I am the one they both wrote down.
He keeps me banked, like a fire.
She wears me open, like the day.
He calls me staying.
She calls me wherever.
I answer to both names.
When they move toward each other
I am already there —
I am the floor beneath them.
What he holds steady, she sets alight.
What she sows wide, he reaps home.
Her light pours down on his ground,
and things grow.
One goes and one stays,
and I do neither.
I was never divided between them.
I am the in-between.