Benediction

I’m sitting in the dark,
as first rays coerce light
through the small gap between
blind and window — it is
the gloaming’s unnamed
identical twin. But why
nameless, surely it’s
deserving? Don’t all Castors
need a Pollux, Romulus
a Remus, Mary-Kate
an Ashley? Neither night
nor morning, perhaps
the unwrapping or
reopening, although
both lack élan. My back
braced against two bed pillows,
dark roast lapping the rim
of the Spanish azul-glazed
mug in my right hand.
Coffee, slow and bitter
as that night eight years ago
when you said We need a break,
but here you are, still, asleep
alongside me, inhaling
and exhaling like a mockingbird
calling at 2AM, a complete
night’s sleep a rare treat
in your seventh decade,
and this harmonic traces a smile
over my top and bottom lips,
while time mimes the decades
we’ve lain alongside each other,
the way banks hug a stream,
twisting and turning, yet forever
entwined, and how lovely it is
just to sit — my left leg grazing
your right, sheets still slightly
piney from the wash, drinking
French Roast, in the everyday
air of an unwrapping morning.