I feel like we are in
an old Hayao Miyazaki movie.
I suspect we are hand-drawn people
hunched over hand-spun milkshakes from a classic American diner
like Culver's burgers and fries.

I imagine the real me
has fallen asleep on a couch
in front of a microwaved dinner
somewhere in the distant future.
I think I was watching
the snow
fall outside the window
like static on a TV screen.

I could have been watching
the same Saturday morning
on loop,
walking in frames
to the same diner we've been going to since you were five.

There, we meet for breakfast
by the window.
Your hand is drawn wearing a gold wedding ring. I smile behind a silver beard.
Though it's hard to recognize our faces,
we say things that sound familiar

something about
how our favorite
Hayao Miyazaki movies
illustrated the passage of
time
through the eyes of a child

You order a kids meal
with a milkshake
in a classic re-enactment of
the days
I thought would
never end.