Starry-Eyed

Sometimes,
I forget that marriage is my own real-life romance,
the same filigreed fabric woven with
our luminous first kiss,
vows handwritten as love letters,
anniversary trips to Venice, NYC, and Rome…

Sometimes,
among the bills and dirty diapers,
our orbits colliding within the same four walls,
marriage lowers its starry eyes
and takes on the antiseptic green of
an institution.

But sometimes,
when he’s away,
memories sift like sunlight through the holes:
glasses of wine in cobblestone cafés,
the living puzzle of our hands,
the core temperature of our last kiss melting memories of our first…

And sometimes,
I have to turn off the chick flicks halfway through
because glamorous actors
and heart-nudging storylines
are only a Netflix imitation of
this.