Happy Birthday

What is the good of a having a public platform if you can't use it to single out family members for conspicuous displays of affection? I have been filing some old poems today, and found this one from ten years ago. I cleaned it up some. Honey, I hope you still like it.

Vigil for Patrick

My lover's birthday will reach me first
three times zones east of where he sleeps.
I'll light candles at midnight
to warm its passage west
and stand in the window at sunrise, stretched
so that no particle of daylight
will reach him unfiltered. Hour after hour
will have to flow through me to get to him
and when night comes I will hold it back
in the doorway just a minute to be sure
the stars have all been lit and counted
before it rolls out singing.

k.

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