vaguely

she hadn't been happy for more months
than she cared to remember.
it wasn't that she hadn't felt
anything coming her way,
but it came her way in degrees,
with conditions,
a love that had limits, laws.

she wasn't good with that
never was
didn't want to know her limits
always strayed outside the lines
and i don't mean fucking around per se
although there was that
who are we kidding
but i mean lines as in
the kind of threat a promise creates
between two people,
this "i will never" or
"i will always."

and what with her lopsided heart,
a heart that wanted, somehow,
less than it had been awarded.
not the brandishing of roses, poetry, song, or spectacle,
but a heart that believed in the beauty
of the unspectacular, the smaller movements
of dinner and sleep and a glass of water
a lover could give, like an afterthought,
when she looked at the slightest edge
of thirsty.

so whom should she thank for this
great, unbidden gift
of a glass, appearing at her bedside?

before what monumental god
should she supplicate herself
for the blessing of this shared meal?

what glorious disaster
coerced such sound, delirious sleep?

it doesn't matter.

at last
she is drinking again.
and in the mirror
a reflection she recognizes to be
the one she must have started with.

finally
each day, passing itself,
is beginning to look vaguely,
and then less vaguely,
like happiness.