Warm Socks and Golden Years

©2022 Susan Noyes Anderson

image by freestocks on unsplash

Warm sock, you’re not…nor yet
a fuzzy slipper, but still you
found a zipper on my heart.

Perhaps you even placed it
there, covertly…brand-new.
I know it never bared its teeth
till you.

And that made you complicit,
surely…inching it down and
open…stealing my love, one
steel bar at a time.

We were slant rhyme.

Still, I will not lay blame, merely
conjecture. And does it really
matter? I gave in.
All-in.

So it’s you, for the win!
But, no.
In truth…it’s us.

Our love’s a plane,
no belching, city bus
to throw us under.
Sure, pilots blunder.

But perfect is no standard for
true love––precluded, even,
if you keep it real.

We do.   Beg, borrow, or
steal for you, I would.
And so it’s good, all good.
A lasting good.

Our shiny, lucky penny
on the ground,
picked up and held.
(once-in) A lifetime, found.

The raising and the rising and
the building, sweet joys and
painful sorrows through the years.

A family that is ours forever-after…
the laughter and the tears,
the faced-down fears.

Through every loss of ours,
each happy gain, my heart calls
and will always call your name.

Sometimes, my toes get
chilly, just the tips;
but in your patent way,
you love me silly.

Which feels, when all
is said and done,
quite like the morning sun…
the hottest rock.

Or even,
dare I say,
a nice, warm sock.

∞§∞

If this poem resonates with you, you might also enjoy Two for the Road.

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