The ones who have vanished
or seem to have. Or I love
those who are easy to love—
often the four-footed, furry ones
who seem to adore us for
no good reason.

I often love best the words that
others have put on the page more
than my own. Especially when
they read them to me, and I
fall hard for them as if they
were a longed-for crush
fondly holding out a hand.

Often I love you best, and I’ll
think this as you tell me a story
over a dinner of leftovers that
you’ve warmed up and served
as if you’d labored long over
oven and stove and made it
specially for me.

But I don’t say so because
you’re in mid-story, and I know
that I tend to interrupt,
impatient to hear details
that you’re not ready to give
or that you might not have.

And so I watch you speak,
remember to drink in the color
of your eyes and the way they
crinkle at the corners, smile
at your hair that’s at that
just-right stage between
haircuts I give you in
my backyard.

And I think how I do, in fact,
love you best and most,
even if I forget to tell you,
trying as I am to absorb
every word of this utterly
ordinary moment that—
though I may one day
want it to—
will never come again.