Twelve shirts and six
strings to feel like home

responsibility slipped over
my head like a cashmere sweater, warm
and welcome

and I drift off to where you
are still sleeping, reach out
to brush the hair from your eyes
and wake up, refreshed and
yearning

you are my sunshine, my only
sunshine

and I am the graphite, I am the
ink beneath your fingers, happily
joining words of life on the horizon
to the fresh, green-growing present

the cozy, the comfort, if not soon then
later but ever closer in my eyes, ever
brighter in yours

remember,
         you are
         my sunshine with
laughter like rays and
   thoughts like hugs,
                             our
                           love like rippling
                           glass, ever beautiful and
                           all our own, a wonder set
                           firmly as a fiery and true
                           gemstone in your golden heart