when i can't find you.

I convince myself you are warm in your cluttered cozy apartment making stew with carrots and knitting afghans for your unborn babies.

I imagine you'll call me and invite me over for tea and sunflower seeds, and you'll tell me about your next mission and the people next door who you hear screaming through the walls.

And you'll ask me if I called my sisters, and tell me about when my hair was short and red and how I'd run when you tried to comb the kinks out. How one time I ran into an iron and burned myself, and you held me, wiped my tears, and asked had I'd learned my lesson.

You'll laugh and try to find the pictures you saved from those years in our old gray house with weak floors, but you've forgotten where you keep them.

Before leaving, I'll ask, "You need some help cleaning up this place?" And you'll say, "Oh no...I like it this way. I know where everything is."