Flying

Remember, when you held my hand

over a restaurant-table

in the shadow of Notre Dame.

Already, my head was flying,

I wanted this wild happiness

to last. ‘I'll have that hand’,

you said, and we grinned at our beginnings

which were also endings —

the past without you seemed remote.

Here was the postscript

I'd been searching for

proving life could begin again

at thirty-five or forty

as we stormed landings,

scanned futures

felt love sitting lightly

on our shoulders, a cocoon

spun and spun, busy with

perfections — holding whole days

in its embrace.