! ! The Poet's Significant Other - For Mary And Todd

On the shelf above the crackling fire, the day’s work over, shadows swaying and flickering across the room, in the firelight’s glow; here is love abiding On the shelf above the crackling fire a few slim books, some of them poetry, some of them signed; open them and the world spills out tumbles laughing and crying, shouting like children home from school with stories; like grandparents reminiscing over photos with a smile; like the last of the night’s pillow talk one already eyes closed, the other treasuring thought On the shelf above the crackling fire two bookends hold the books in place pressing lightly against each other as two lovers walking through a door, a gate, from here to there one bookend’s image we know well familiar to us from the books How little we know, of that other bookend without which, without whom, there might not be these books, lightly pressing on the shelf above love’s glow