We all want to belong
to someone, something,
sometime,

and the deft eyewink of
the apostrophe affirms
connection:

the girl’s notebook
the girls’ soccer team
the boy’s piano
the boys’ campout

the art of belonging to one
or more than one.

But it’s more than that:
A bit of magic lies in
morphing two words
into one,

forming a contraction
that twines letters
into a new form,
bringing them closer,
like birds on a wire,
giving them a kind
of belonging they’d
never have had
alone.

Without that bit of
punctuational
confetti,

I’d not be me;
you’d not be you,
we who’ve loved
each other into
us.

2/13/23, for Dick Schmidt’s 80th birthday