Credo-40
This is the day I will hold it all lightly,
for my own sake.
I will tell myself that your hands and eyes
spoke truth, what they knew of it,
and that love does not rain on dry ground.
I will not dwell on the alter-worlds
of erasure or return.
I will declare my heart both
entirely taken
and entirely my own.
I will trust that the world
just outside my skin
is not made of daggers and fire.
I will hold the image of you
arriving, and arriving again--
freely, with fresh anticipation--
the last night so like the first.
I will forgive my remembering,
though it draws you dangerously close,
with the soft persistence of your mouth
when words were at rest.
And I will believe the stories people tell--
not because they can be lived,
but because they are believed.
