When we are old again,
I will conduct a parley with you in our kitchen,
Above the mocking protest of the morning kettle.

We will plan tonight’s dinner party,
Looking through cookbooks as old as our cozy confederation—
(Be it legal or not)—
happy to be discussing what we love,
even though we have asked and answered a thousand times the same.

The first time we met was India,
fourth century,
under palms and full of spice.
The second sin was of the Grecian isles.
The short lived third is fuzzy,
yet my heart tells me it was in Aquitaine.

We must be on the thousandth now?
Yet every birth is the first birth.

You reach for your knife,
split the lime in four,
slip a quarter into my mouth,
remind me this life cycle is not so sour,
but buzzes with a lust of generations.

Each of our faces has been re-sculpted dozens of times—
Holding different lights in each hemisphere—

No matter, because we know the eternal truth
comes not from lips,
but from the whispering beats of the heart.

The worst parts are the in between states,
the limbo of languishing,
Neither dead nor alive,
waiting for the next round to begin—
that quarter slice of heaven—
keeps us diving back for more.

Love elephant and want to go steady?

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Apprentice Editor: Guenevere Neufeld / Editor: Catherine Monkman

Photos: courtesy of the author