A Poem for a Thursday #193

Clint Smith is an American poet and writer. His 2017 poetry collection, Counting Descent, was a finalist for the NAACP Image Awards and won best poetry book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. He is also the author of a narrative nonfiction book entitled How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America. It was a New York Times Bestseller and one of their Top Ten Books of 2021.

you wake up first on the left side of the bed, kiss my cheek and let
your feet slide onto the coolness of the wooden floor, which
sometimes creaks depending on how cold the weather is but it is
the beginning of autumn so today it is soft like a distant whistle,
just like we were eight years old and this was the end of recess but 
really you and I have never stopped playing, and I feel like that's
what makes this so great, we laugh as often as we breathe, but I
apologize if I am getting off topic, this is supposed to be a poem
about how I listen to you pitter-patter across the room as the sun
rises and I still pretend to be asleep, my eyes shut while I hear the
splashing of water against skin from the bathroom and these are 
the moments when I feel most lucky, when the steam is sliding out
from behind the door and you emerge looking like everything that 
has ever mattered and I can't pretend to be asleep anymore
because how could I keep lying about how remarkable it is to get to
see you each day before the rest of the word does, now by this 
time I have gotten out of bed and started looking for the iron
which I can somehow never seem to find and it's not like I need it
anyway, it's not like my pants are that wrinkly, but sometimes
routine feels nice because it is familiar and you are something I
hope remains familiar for as long as I keep waking up each
morning you know the mornings full of NPR and exercises we're 
 a bit too tired to do, but we do it anyway because one day we'll
have kids and hopefully they'll have kids and we want to be
healthy enough to run around the park with them while they
ask us questions about how plants grow and why dogs seem like
they can run forever, I know I keep talking about forever but it's 
hard when that's all I see in the mornings when you kiss me and
pitter-patter across the floor while I pretend to sleep

Each Morning Is a Ritual Made Just for Us
Clint Smith