when we lived with a dragon

by T.L. Stokes
(Mill Creek, Washington USA)

You are the only one I send poems to.
The only one who seems to understand
the secret life of words,

where they huddle when it's pouring
the black blankets they pull up
the guttural whispers
you almost perceive

as something you almost know.

You are the only one I send poems to,
cutting them from copper canyon,
gluing them to something I mail

off morning or late at night.
I know you read every one
and you let me know how it strikes you.

Tenderly, painfully, arrows or kisses.
We love the poem, as if they are babies
we share with no one else.

And when twilight finally comes
we snack on pop corn, curled close
with a slumbering dragon
on the sofa.