Epithalamion

Let’s believe a house is waiting. Let’s

believe it’s gray so day doesn’t restart

in plastic pink. Let’s believe this.

Doors yawn open and show how time

has smoothed white pine, and the worn sweater

looped over a chair shows the like

and love of a couple that has loved that

house be it in Kansas or the fields of California.

On the windowsill a row of figs

lines up like weathered dominoes. You

might say sunshine has hungered

for sweetness and found what it was looking for

in this house. Life is not exceptionally cruel. Instead

it has promised a kitchen of voices of

laughter bright as strings of mica. The

air is warm with coffee and ham sandwiches.

Over and over the couple has learned on days of

gray how to hold a hand when misunderstanding

has slipped into the fold of their lives. I

know their quibble will be too personal to make

sense of just now, but their love will have made

the world better for me and for you.

The voices of love inhabit the air full

of the tangerine’s tang, the blackbird’s call, full of

the calm in famished waters. Our prayers, our

hope is you weather through anything that scars.

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JOHN DAVIS is the author of two collections, Gigs and The Reservist, his work has appeared in DMQ Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, and others.