• Comfortable

    They sit on a brown plaid picnic blanket,
    apart from the world,
    surrounded by the remnants of their breakfast:
    bagel crumbs and a Bruegger's cream cheese container
    and a half-filled canteen of hot green tea.

    She leans into his embrace, resting her head
    in the hollow between his collarbone and breast.
    Her right arm hugs the curve of his lower back;
    her fingers tenderly trace and retrace the line of a seam
    on the hip of his worn Levi's.
    With the toe of her dirty blue Sketchers,
    she toys with the lid of the picnic basket,
    pushes it up, lets it drop, pushes it up.
    She watches the clouds;
    one resembles a lopsided heart,
    and the rose-edged clouds on the horizon
    herald a magnificent sunrise.

    His left arm holds a cozy afghan
    snugly around her shoulders,
    to help keep the early-morning chill from seeping in.
    His chin rests lightly on the crown of her head,
    and with half-closed eyes he watches
    the lines of sunlight moving back and forth
    across a glossy lock of her newly almond-brown hair.
    He wraps and unwraps it around his ring finger,
    and he wonders how to tell her
    that she was just as beautiful before.