The Whole of It

But eventually, you are cross-legged on your own

sofa, in your own little apartment, eating

a piece of cake topped with sugared peach

and you're drenched in the wet orange joy of it.

Every time you touch your fingertips

to your soft pale belly, you realise: you are living. What a dream

you could be wishing for in some other, darker, life:

to be here, now.

Bathtub full of tea, cotton bedspread speckled

with a hundred blue flowers, a thrift store ceramic

planter with a sunlit basil plant forming

itself right before your eyes.

You have come so far

to love your little life so much

that you would not trade a single scar.

Love it so much, that the empty side of the bed

is already full.