He and I are the same:
umbrellas on sunny days, nothing in the rain and
shivering, slightly, in the warmth of sunny rooms.

His gentle face watches me walk through the door
and he paces the floor looking for a rhyme
that will hold me, neat like the sonnet he’s folding

                    my quiet dear, who walked in shadowed rooms
                    forever, noticed slightly dimming lights
                    and slighter changes in the weather, afternoons
                    with showers, clear and starry nights.

                    she smelled like air and puddles on the street
                    The rosy blush of clouds after a storm--
                    the pinkish blush of clouds after a storm--
                    the white and empty sky after a storm--

He admits defeat, and again we are the same,
afraid to speak each other’s names, waiting
for rhymes that would’t come, or never came.

But we could slink back into the mountainsides,
coastlines, deep tree recessions and rain-filled
nights, you and I.  Be brave and build a home,

a bed and a desk, fill up our books with poems
about the weather, the curves of our necks, lay
our words in the soil of the cold, careful northwest.