Written on Nowruz

The old book fell off the shelf as we were cleaning up to move.

We picked it up, the book we wrote together back when

we would streak through the backyard, looking for plums.

That book we wrote together came loose and fell onto my foot.

We picked it up and sat on the coffee table in the office to crack

its shell of dust. There were the pictures, and there were the words.

That book had butterflown face down onto the fortunes we told.

Now we read divination in the drawings and poems, what we agreed:

that we want more, that we can wake up together and everything else

must wait, because the drawing together must be done and done first.

I had two drafts, and chose the latter, and that’s the record in the book.

You had looked out your studio window just as I was walking up.

Do you want to try, too? The invitation in color, open wide,

arriving down the garden stairs with flowers and wine,

reading from the floor, for ten nights, since that’s what it took:

waiting for the press and the bus and the wand to wave to make

the book fall from the shelf while we are cleaning up,
tidying for a move, that book that we made together coming
down like paper snow, no words on the spine, forgotten beside

an obsolete print dictionary we got before things went online.

Before we had kids, we wrote that book. Here’s proof we did:

pictures in the texture of trust, words in a coy dance

venturing forth with small silent steps to ring the meditation bell.

It is our book we made back when the umbrella lady balanced

on the line and we fell with absurd abandon into each refrain.