Necessary Conjunction
I have turned to look at him.
We are sitting together,
having breakfast,
in the code of congruence
known only to man and woman married many years.
And all at once,
I see his hand.
A loose fist of fingers,
lying very still,
by itself.
Inert beside his empty coffee cup.
At this same instant,
I see that this is what my loving him
boils down to:
not great things clamoring for remembrance –
the moments of infinity we brought to loving;
or the calm, substantial truth of
bodies lying side by side in sleep.
And not the everything of two lives
being one, for half a lifetime.
Just his hand.
by Peggy Freydberg
from Poems from the Pond
Hybrid Nation, 2015