From time to time you will ask me,
always with the same coy inflection,
what i am thinking about,

And each time I'm not sure
how best to give you
an honest answer,

how to succinctly catalog
the innumerable things that had
crossed my mind right before you asked.

My real answer is always this:

I'm thinking how there is nothing i'd prefer,
in no exotic location i'd rather be,
than sitting right here, silently
in your car, the window cracked
just enough that i can smell the grass outside.

I'm thinking that nothing sounds sweeter
than the singular cadence of your
unexpected laughter as it carries into
the kitchen while i'm reaching
for the cereal above the fridge.

I'm thinking that nothing I've ever seen
in art or nature holds as much warmth
as the liquid amber of your eyes, or shares
the perfect symmetry of your freckles,
the constant constellation across your shoulders.

And i am thinking, more than all of these,
that there's nothing i wouldn't give for you
to look at me like that again - that gaze
you sometimes do, the one that breaks my heart
each time it melts away - even if
for just a second more.

The answer i give you, though
honest at its core, is simply
"nothing."