For a few weeks in early January,
recovering from colds and the airport
fumes of holiday travel, we turn our
bed into a tent. Except we are too tired
to do anything but crawl under the covers
away from the moans and coughs of
our recovering toddler, and tell each other
this is a tent. That is enough for a few
nights to create real magic. We stumble
in at 8:30 and fall asleep hours later.

We tell each other the story of how
we came to be together, till it is repaired
again. There is peace here, a kind
I could not have imagined a week ago tending
to your sickness, to our daughter, while your family
churned around us, offering suggestions.

I know the you that is here, beneath our periwinkle
sheets, the one that says I love you with reverence,
that pushes and pulls at my calves to relieve the tension
a day of chores brings. Is that a firefly? you ask,
pointing at the blinking light of my cell phone. It is.