January

The sea does what it always does,

pulls away, comes back.

You take my hand like it’s nothing,

like it’s everything.

We walk where the land breaks its vow,

cliffs tumbling down into salt,

the sky high and sharp as bitten glass.

It is cold, but not unkind.

Years have settled into us,

not like dust, but like a tide-

lapping, shaping, knowing.

I do not have to ask if you love me.

The answer is in the way we walk,

unhurried, together.

Normal is a trick of the light.

Look.

Your breath is a cloud,

your bootprints hold the shore,

your voice rises into the wind,

and I want to keep it all.