A friend tells me my phone call to her 
when she was visiting family over the holidays 
was like spring water to a parched soul 
and I thought, we are not conscious of what we do, 
in fact, it is better so, 
because there’s nothing in it for us, 
because the stream where we dipped our canteen 
was just there, given, like breath, 
and I thought if I could make a necklace of the moments, 
when I was fulfilled, when my suffering was lifted, 
I’d wear it daily: moments trapped in amber 
we can look into and watch the scene unfold, 
like right now, remembering how your breasts felt 
against me when we lay naked on that winter morning, 
how I did not want to get out of bed in spite of 
having to pee so badly, of what it was like to get up 
and make the coffee and have you sleepily 
come into the kitchen with your hair wild from the pillow, 
a blanket wrapped around you, your smile, 
and when you said, “Next time I’ll bring a robe,” 
and I knew then that you loved me enough to return. 
We are allowed only so many moments of heaven, 
and then there is nothing. 
This is perhaps the beginning of prayer, 
not to beg the gods but to sing 
of what small gifts there are in this mystery, 
to slow everything down and be in them with all we have. 

Doug Anderson

is a poet and memoirist whose books include Undress, She Said (Four Way Books, 2022). His memoir Keep Your Head Down: Vietnam, the Sixties, and a Journey of Self-Discovery was published by W. W. Norton in 2009.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ The Numbers, haibun story by Doug Anderson in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 25, September 2024)

⚡ The Photographer, haibun by Anderson in MacQ (Issue 24, August 2024)

⚡ The Gravestone and the Continuing Self, essay in Vox Populi (1 August 2021)

⚡ I am always in love, prose poem in Vox Populi (21 September 2018)

⚡ Living Will, poem in Issue 4 of KYSO Flash (Fall 2015)