A Life of Wonder

At night, we walk to the black ocean. In the blackness, and the the cold. In the starlessness, we walk. Hand in hand, saying nothing, waiting for the wind to subside. We approach each other open mouthed, shivering and gasping for lips or air. 

You played in copper bathtubs with imaginary boats sailing on the soap. Attended by widows of unreal wars. Husbands died without knowing why. Unrealized. Never to taste fatherhood.

Widows who raised the sons they never had, raised them alone, raised them with dreams unfilled, like letters unwritten, unsent, unseen from the battlefield. 

I am of them, and of the juniper tree.

I am of simple mind with heart dotted in a vermillion, spelling out “home” in Morse Code. 

-Zjb