Her smile sits
on the curb of a road
between Summer
and Fall.

They say life's
  
        A story.

Me, I never read mine.
    

I lived it, who wants to know
     The beginning and the ending.

live your story,
     Skip chapters,

Remember your writing it.

We cant undo
what has
     Already been expelled.


Never can we
catch a breath,
      That was breathed before.

Learn that every
exhale
   Has meaning.

And we only have
         So many,

let every single one count
      For something.

Such a mundane thing
To walk through a door
Yet you are there
On the other side, smiling,
And we are already making
Memories and pressing them
      into our pages --

We laugh at saying the same
Word at once: zinfandel
And I feel a beginning
Coming toward me --

In our first goodbye kiss
That night was a telling, sublime,
Beyond our lips and our stories
That cocooned us in that moment
      and spun love's possibility
Under approving December skies --

A single birch leaf
Floated to my sill
Today.

It made my summer
Knees wobble as it sang
September's denouement --

It laughed at me so
Mired in time and
Said,

Don't worry
Little one,
You will know
My secret
One day --