Stained

My love, you are an impressionist painter

when you eat,

and wearing white is your call to action.

Any bowl of spicy noodle soup can make my heart stop

the tendrils of flour and water like eels

in a Martian river dancing between your

chopsticks, spraying vermillion on everything

pristine. These old stains you leave

like scripture, and when we grow old one day

I will spin yarns of you and freckle each thread

with the hot sauce,

grease and marinara that coat your poor

linen shirts like a vignette on canvas. When your

own materials become too routine for your painter's

touch I know you will use my jackets and skirts

as your blank slate, a gentle squeeze of the shoulder

leaves a gravy print and sheepish look on your face.

I've thrown many a tee shirt straight in the wash and

bleach is a ritual in the years that I've loved you.

You come from a line of spillers –

I remember the summer after your grandfather had left us

for new earth, sitting in his closet

weaving and siphoning through his old sweaters

feeling the cotton and wool

whisper the story of a man who'd been loved so deeply,

each sleeve and collar and hem bespeckled

with the ghost of a stain left as a token

of indelible tenderness.