a memory each morning

i will always think of you like that, standing there in your pajamas on the porch.

when the clouds of old age loom. when children grow up and move away and the rooms are too big but the clothes fit smaller. when the creaky floorboards give way to creaky knees and elbows. when i sit down on the cold basement floor sifting through the relics of us, our high school days and our wedding day. pictures in hospitals and on church steps.

i'll remember the mornings in that little cottage of ours, backing out of the gravel drive. you, always, there by the screen door. bare feet and messy hair. a sleepy grin and a wave. and the way that sight would feed me through the day, propelling me onward until we met again on that same porch, a different greeting as the sun faded to black.

i love you all the time, but perhaps the best like this.