Ten, A Poem

1...

2...

3...

they continue

4...

5...

6...

still more

7...

8...

9...

not quite done because at this moment the final number is

10...

Easy counting

if you're a toddler and don't know

that each one is a minute and a lifetime 

all at the same time.

Two hundred and forty hours of birthdays.

14,400 minutes acknowledging a milestone.

864,000 seconds celebrating without him.

And some of that, 

mercifully, 

I spent sleeping.

Please let me wake up and have it be over or maybe let it last forever 

in pregnant expectation of what could be

Each one

Empty and full.

The glass is both.

It's a steady stare at all that's firmly in the past, but also a bright red arrow pointing to what is still in my

soul.

Joy and pain living together 

like opposites that attract

and refuse to be pulled apart.

Never completely one thing or another

Always some mix of what's gone and what remains

A decade of birthdays with me

and not him.

Written by Anne Luck-Deak, 3/8/2021

Today, my 43rd birthday, was a good day. I didn't work, spent some time with one of my best girlfriends, and ate so many foods I love. Domani and I took some old gift cards and went shopping at Target, we walked on the towpath at sunset, and then grabbed our favorites from Tortugas Mexican Village for dinner. My order was undoubtedly the same one I got 10 years ago today when Joe and I brought 6-month old Domani there to celebrate my birthday.