your laugh is a cloud in the soil

& together we grow the sun in our garden,

a light tended on vines that wrap

from my arms to yours because without you

i am only me—only half of the we that i love

& together we cook food from the peppers

we’ve plucked in baskets, washed, held, rinsed

under our third kitchen sink, a third home

you and i built when the last was too much

& together we open the moon and the stars,

breathe into them what they’ve given to us

for eight years, eight years of you tapping your leg

against the coffee table, couch, computer desk

& i wouldn’t trade them for all the keyboards

you keep stashed in our closet or all the shells

stuffed in tupperware that i swear one day

i’ll find something for us to do with.