—NOW IT’S JUST A STORY THAT YOU TELL

 

Almost Perfect

 

With a stick of driftwood, you scar the sand, giggling off and on as gulls swoop and float overhead, a dingy bobbing on the horizon, all of it nearly perfect like our honeymoon decades ago, long before lost keys, forgotten names and places, doctors and tests, things that matter but don’t now, not so much, just the fact that we’re still together, me studying your childlike reprieve, leaning over your sunburnt shoulders and wispy gray hair as you titter some more, point the stick and say, “This one, this one looks a lot like you, whoever you are.”