caught her cleaning the fingerprints off of the mirrored door,
using the ever handy bathrobe sleeve,
fabric of a thousand utilities, this one too,
me wonder, whose prints? mine, kids, hers,
could they not have remained as a history,
highway road marker, “On this site here…”
more fingers, skin-oiled, will return, the chain
unbroken, for mirrors collect memories, faces seen,
matched to prints of hands that traversed this doorway,
on the way to where, it don’t matter, signs of humans
that come and gone…erasure troubles me…not
because cleanliness is next to godliness, cause
god is mighty messy and a few prints ain’t gonna
make a big difference…but
she espies me lazy observing, annoyed, she chastises,
her reproving noises fail to include a thank you for
prints mine, most fresh, carried two mugs of coffee minutes earlier,
part of my daily chore, and a morning
I love you, an essay that is perfect in its abbreviation,
like a short poem sweet, so I hid my head neath the coverlet,
lest she see, me & a well hid grinning smile
sipping coffee even more
contentedly
poetry and love is and always found in the oddest places….
