anniversary eve

We "courted" for so long; three months of crossword puzzles, books read together and discussed over tea, messages left for the other in newspaper articles and margins.  

In those first few months of courting, he would leave his paper for me to find, saving half the crossword for me, wishing me a good day in the margins. I left him messages by underlining random words in an article to make a poem or a song. We had just talked about that - the messages we left for each other - a few weeks before he drowned. He told me "I still leave you some every once in awhile, but I don't know that you find them." We probably both missed so many hidden notes.

For our anniversary, my love, I have left you a message (though not terribly romantic), underlined in the NYT. Hope you find it.

It is obvious
very much apparent
painful on all sides
Death
is so exhaustive
like climbing Mt. Everest
No less confounding,
still surprising.

this was an accident.
was not supposed to have been.
In her grievance,
she cannot align herself

I'm sorry these two
could not speak
the story
from start to finish

Happenstance
catastrophe

Our privacy is successful
intimate
inescapable

How I wish this
whole ride
was done.