Another Anniversary

In this story, you are
alive and healthy
laughing at something your grandchildren said
tossing a green ball for the new puppy
cooking exotic meals with spices
not sold in our small town
gardening every day
in this fallow period between holidays,
Independence Day gone,
Halloween a distant orange glimmer on the shore,
there is nothing to decorate the house for and so
you have more time for reading cookbooks
as if they were novels
for crying at sad movies
and telling the stories you are filled with,
the good ones you never stole time to tell.
Come, sit on my front porch, rest
your tired feet, your busy mind,
Relax and
Tell me, now.