for Amy
A poem the long way around —
one stanza for each place you and I have been.
Twenty-five Junes, and the morning still feels new —
the same light, the same coffee, the same you.
If the question came back to me tonight,
I would say yes again, and yes, and do.
We met on JDate — a profile, a hope — and stepped into our first afternoon together a hundred floors above New York, at the Observatory of the World Trade Center.
We met on a screen — a profile, a chance, a yes —
and chose a tower with the whole city laid below.
You stepped out of the elevator into my whole life,
and the rest of me, somehow, already seemed to know.
Back to where we'd started — the same tower, one year on, the question I'd been carrying all year.
A year later, the same April, the same tower —
the city laid below us, this time in candlelight.
I asked the only question I'd ever need to ask.
You said yes, and the skyline said it too.
Massachusetts. Among the paintings, we became one.
Among the paintings, you became the frame
my whole life would happen inside of.
Marc Cohn was singing somewhere in my head —
true companion, true companion, true love.
Pink sand, blue water, and the kind of corny that turns out to be the truth.
The Love Boat — corny enough to be true —
pink sand, blue water, the slow afternoon sun.
I learned then what I'd keep on learning:
the calmest place is wherever you've gone.
A year married — white light, slow days, and the version of us we would always come back to.
A year into us, the world soft and slow around us,
Mexico in white light, the days unhurried —
you looked at me the way you still look at me,
and I knew this was what we were for.
Our boy. A small, serious miracle who rearranged the world.
He came in like a small, serious miracle,
and the world I thought I knew rearranged.
You held him, and I saw what you would be —
the steady center of everything that changed.
The Jewish holidays we carried from your family's table to ours — the same candles, the same blessings, made new each year.
From your family's table we carried the candles,
the brisket, the blessings, the long-set place —
and built the same warmth around our own children,
the old words made new in our daughter's face.
Our girl. Quick laugh, fierce heart — the second miracle that made us four.
And then her. Quick laugh, fierce heart —
the second miracle that made us four.
Watching you with her, I finally understood
what all the years ahead of us were for.
The slow blue afternoons, the boats, the bay — the summers we kept coming back to.
Boats and salt air, the dock at low tide,
the bay holding the long afternoon —
we kept those summers like something sacred,
and we are still living in their light.
The loudest, brightest, most exhausting joy — and you, laughing like a kid.
Two small hands in mine, two small hands in yours,
the loudest, brightest, most exhausting joy.
You laughed like you were eight years old again,
and I fell for you the way I always do.
Sometimes the four of us. Sometimes just two. Always the long quiet hours.
Cabins, snow, a slow fire on the hearth,
sometimes the four of us, sometimes just two.
I'd take any version, any season,
as long as the long quiet hours include you.
The year our boy stood up in cap and gown — the four of us slipped away to sea to mark the moment.
The year our boy stood up in cap and gown,
the four of us at sea to mark the day —
salt air, blue afternoons, our children grown beside us,
and the quiet pride of every mile of the way.
So here we are. Twenty-five years.
Two children, ten thousand small Tuesdays, one life.
The question comes around again tonight —
true companion. And the answer is still yes.