When I wake and turn on our bed
to you,
little muffin with mosquito bite,
little strawberry linen pj’s rumpled,
yet big,
I squint to see.

I am still dreaming of college and dormitories and young Elvis.
Coffee is present, at least in smell.
And the fan, circumnavigating
the room,
combined with some
serious Sunday sun streaming,
culled with voices out,
away from my dreaming,
sunlight, cousin-sunburns,
and that coffee,
I think I’m at the bay,
our bay in Harvey Cedars.

And I won’t get up from my dream-licked palette,
can’t creak my ankles to see over
her third-story window
where sun is gleaming even at 7:25,
won’t topple the sandcastle feeling
that I am with you all:
thirty welcoming faces pour my coffee, suggest a run on the beach, or bike ride to the bakery.

I won’t set myself up to see that
instead of ocean, gulls, and terns,
there will be
a horizon of buildings.
There will be sun hats and gloves.
And high heels and sneakers.

Not seaweed, not put-put, but quick this way, we have places to be.

There will be city, the ocean,

really a frenetic train, waving past the dunes,

running home.

It will be on time, but I will feel late
or early, thinking back.

I was with you,
I stirred in your milk and served your water with ice, clinking clinking resemblance, family jokes at sun up.
I showered over stones, over deck.
We must have biked the island up and down thirty times or sixty.
And how many seagulls would we have seen if tagged over the years,
their hungry cries willing blue crabs to beach themselves and open up.

I walked sand, hunted for that clear, perfect spot to set up camp,
looked out, looked out with love.
I climbed each grated step to the top
and peered out.

I hear you now, my family,
morning mixing with night.
Sunday makes me squint as I take in the missing you with coffee, streaming out. All this before I’ve even gotten up.