We have a cottage,
not quite out of the way,
but mostly.

Inside, there are cats that slip
in and out of their cat-flap.
We feed them from our hands,
and spoil them with cans of tuna.
(Cans that I eat, too.)

We sit in a swing on our porch,
Reading books dog-eared for each other,
And under a light rain,
We let the stray drops cool our cheeks,
and damp our pages.

Sometimes, in thunderstorms,
I pet your hair and hold you.

Sometimes, I hide on the roof,
and you throw pinecones until I come down.

When you’re mad, you throw apples
from our tree.
Once you throw a rock.
Later, I keep the rock in our kitchen,
blaming it for our problems instead of you.

When we go, the roses and blues and greens of our inside dull to grey,
the cats don’t come home,
the books wither to dust,
and no one makes fruit salads
or plants vegetables in our garden.

then one day, back from life again,
we tentatively tiptoe back in,
connected by our little fingers.
You go first, always braver, but I
am close on your heels.
Everything we touch turns bright,
a soft meow sounds from the door.
We don’t always have this,
but we always have each other.