Simplify, as in Forget
To turn off the stove
or close the refrigerator door,
such brazen attempts to win
the aging contest or blur the mirror
of clarity — you won’t say
which to blame or praise
or whether intent is implicit in
action or if I should hold my breath.
What is the freezing point of love?
When you were cold, whose
belly did you curl into, whose ear
gathered your breath and returned it
warm and with the promise of bees
producing honey? Your name floats
above my outstretched hand,
and unable to grab it, I blink and turn
away. Nothing works as it should.
I exhale. You push the door shut.
* * *
“Simplify, as in Forget” first appeared in the print journal Good Works Review in February 2018, and is included in the anthology Lost & Found: Tales of Things Gone Missing, Wagon Bridge Publishing, 2019.
O at the Edges 
just keep breathing
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Oh, yes. That has been my goal, especially over the past six months!
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Ah, an expression of love is one’s gentle closing of the refrigerator door left ajar by the other having since wandered beyond hearing range of insistent beep-beep-beep …
(Does anyone make a smart refrigerator capable of starting that beep sooner triggered by human passing some designated camera??)
This poem is about deeper matters, but your opening really struck a chord!
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Someone should market that refrigerator! That beep is so annoying.
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