Homemade chocolate chip cookies on a saucer
a glass of whole milk, untouched on a stool beside us
I curl into him, no sound
I tell him I’m afraid of how often love and marriage
becomes ugly, bitter, poisoned
We are both afraid
I have an instinct to pray
and I cry to music with no lyrics
My love is revealed to me in new fears
My slow walk to the car,
digging my toes down into loose snow to find ice
to test how slippery
I am fragile now
In the forest beside our home
I stop at the edges of switchbacks
To scan the ponderosa pines sagging like hammocks
for resting mountain lions
I’ve seen the three-lobe tracks
We are soft flesh, and I have not spotted one
But I am sure, now, something could happen to us
Any time
