They sit across their kitchen table,
Sunday light through lace curtains
that neither recalls hanging.
The coffee is dark, aromatic.
She stirs in cream. He doesn’t.
They like it like that.
In the past they argued -
should it be bitter, should it be sweet -
now silence tastes like forgiveness.
Desire taps the rim of her cup.
She still wears red now and then,
just to remember the fire.
Regret breathes easier these days,
folding the newspaper like a map to nowhere.
He knows every route ends here.
Outside, the world crashes
in its usual symphony -
sirens, sparrows, laughing children -
a storm they once conjured.
Tempests brewed in bedsheets.
Earthquakes formed in glances.
Now, they are the calm
at the center of chaos.
They talk about tomatoes,
how the garden needs turning.
An undercurrent, a shared history
of wanting and wishing.
She touches his hand.
It’s just the thing you do
when the war has passed
and you’re still standing.
He looks at her like a man
who never quite solved the puzzle,
but learned to love the pieces.
Outside, the wind bows low
at the feet of its makers.