I woke with a start,

the cracked wooden shutters banging wearily in the wind, hinges groaning, slowly rusting, fully unaware that their time had past, instead they hold on like steadfast soldiers defending a front that no longer matters, in a war that’s already been lost

And, as sleep dissipates, my attention narrows and I -
I realize that I have no wooden shutters, that they have not
been attached to a house in which I’ve slept for more years than
most dogs live in east coast towns with half lit neon signs
O en 24 rs

and yet somehow I heard them rat, tat, tattering like the
shuffling of shoes attached to a woman that needs a wheelchair
but refuses, in favor of a walker, who never leaves the house without
removing all the curlers and putting on her face

None the less the shutters, some time long ago
were torn and left asunder, when the house was removed from
its foundation, by a chipped yellow painted machine,
with enough torque to remove the home in which I grew from existence, leaving a gaping hole that was the basement
where I had my first second base

But there is you, laying beside me, gently breathing in the dark
like the consistent flow of ocean waves, lapping the shore with certitude then slowly disappearing into the vastness of the green blue sea

You are more than I ever could have hoped for, more than I
could have imagined decades ago, when, with a pillow pulled upon my head,
wishing that the wooden shutters attached to my blue green house would drown out the sound adults in family rooms make when
screams are louder than Carson and the studio audience’s laughter

Instead of falling back to sleep, I prefer to listen to your ocean’s breath, the silence from the family room that you and I occupy, while hoping to one day hold you steady long after you need a wheelchair but prefer instead my forearm and a cane