I wake to the smell of popcorn between my sheets: you walked through the walls of my dream

showing me photos of puppy paws & Ukrainian flowerpots. We go in search of your birthday meal:

the perfect blend of familiar & strange. Green oysters on a bed of thyme. Blackberry martinis &

curry-powdered marginatas that make our eyes water with want. There’s utility & there’s joy & then

there are the details of our days that cannot be recorded. Some moments transcend the page. Your

camera cannot capture the goats beard seeds floating through our morning: a constellation of 

haloes. Tiny locust petals that drift onto the car like a conversation with God. Red & winding

poppies waiting for the sun to slice through all memories of yesterday. The churchyard filled with

daisies: a visible resurrection. These are the in-between days when I can act out a different life. A

chance to erase my sins: greed / ingratitude/ pride / sloth / despair: so that I can see your face in

the heaven of hatch chilis & magpies as wide-winged as a kite: their voices a riot of cherubim.

A divided highway paradise of far-from-home strangers who never ask your name: they already know.