1 p.m. Rebecca Hewitt

for Davie and Suzie in honor of their 40th wedding anniversary

Someone told me once that the key to marriage is having enough gas in the tank to make it through grad school and small children.

I’ve always wondered—make it to where?

Sipping wine on the deck with ease no interruptions or spilled milk on the wooden planks, remembering together the red dress, the blue suit, the heat of an Iowa summer or nights in The Caymans watching shooting stars.

For every charmed memory, every good place you somehow make it to, there are the hours of loss, the roses that shrivel in the garden, despite your best efforts.

And through it all, a repetition of affection, a kiss on a cheek, a knowing glance across states and cities --- California and DC, Indiana, Colorado. Roads that are sometimes starlit, sometimes lonely, but always, if you reach for it, your lover’s hand waiting for you to take it again and again.

for Luc, age 7

I’m sorry to tell you, there’s a Tatzelwuwrm under your bed.

It’s scaly and smart and it’s eyeballs glow red.

But it actually likes you, and thanks to the legos you feed it, it will be your best friend if you ever need it to scare off some mean kids or prank your mom, though I don’t recommend that because she is the bomb dot com.

The Carolina summer sun comes through my windows like an old friend who annoys me— never showing up for basketball when I want him to.

It’s morning again, that promise of a new day, glistening before me—light dancing off the floorboards asking me, to move my feet to the day’s song.

But actually, I think the song might be stupid. I put the pillow over my head and go back to sleep.