Momma’s Collar
Alyce McDonald
3 AM
Anderson Aven Cook
Twenty-nine years,
six months,
twenty-three days.
We measure our lives with an arbitrary creation.
A year, a month, a week,
a day, an hour, a second.
Our most precious commodity —
the one thing we can never get more of —
is an utter paradox
on which we have built history.
And yet I know no other way to mark
the passage of our time together.
Fifteen years,
one month,
nineteen days.
I measure out my life in harsh words rashly spoken
and broken promises laid to rest
in the softest gossamer whisper.
“I’m sorry” never quite cut it with us,
but “I love you” almost always did.
I measure my life in laugh lines
I never would have found
without you.
“You are too young” and “It won’t last”
became a metronome we learned to ignore,
finding a rhythm all our own.
I measure my life in the curvature of your smile,
your hand on my waist,
your fingers twined around my own.
Eleven years,
two months,
sixteen days.
You have safeguarded my heart,
and in the space between seconds,
I’ll always think of you.
