Refuge

 

My love is like unto a book, the kind

you fall into, some day too dark to stand,

to bear.  Beside your bed it lies; you find

yourself transported to a sunny land –

 

the tale might storm, or snow, or blaze with heat –

but still, it’s somehow better there.  When life

has left you cold, these gathered pages greet

you with a constant treasured warmth.  No strife

 

can stand against the ones who live within,

whose troubles may be worse.  And yet you see

yourself in them, an echoed self, a twin

who takes your hand and pulls you close.  May we

 

always share a shelf, my love, and interleave

our sheets.  Such battered, lovely lives we weave.

 

*****

 

on Valentine’s day, for Kevin, of course, and for Jed, and also Roshani and Alex and Kirsten and Lori and my sisters and all the others who have loved me, whom I have been lucky enough to love.