The Bath We Created Together

Morning toes trip down the stairwell

Skip over the well-worn wood and patter

Across our linoleum kitchen floor

Five minutes later the teakettle shrieks out its warning

Stop what you are doing! it shrills impatiently

Come back down!

Traverse those stairs that lead to and from

Your quiet, woodsy retreat

And down to today, tomorrow and, most often, yesterday

Yesterday still lays on the coffee table

Waiting to be swept up and tidied away

She is ready to start anew, today now

There are fresher crumbs to be scattered

Plumped up pillows to be tossed haphazardly to the floor

New music to be played, snuffed out candles to be replenished

Conversations had and laughter shared

Come, come! the kettle cries

Cross into the living room that dances with filtered sunlight

Where he picks at his guitar

And you flit about, a perpetual nervous bird

That same living room where he reclines

Contented of an evening

Your head sighing its way into sleep

Curled and cradled in this bath you have created

Together