So, here is what was supposed to be. You were going to bake with cast iron for our 10-year anniversary, and I would craft a kickass haiku. Something like…

Blueberry pie night’s

Snow moon blinks on salt water

Beach sand sugar beams 

But these words, a draft, and your GI tract, out of whack, so you curl in a dark room and devour True Crime (not unlike a critter nested below a cottonwood). I watch a corny show in a separate room, not once soured. In fact, the day is perfect. Perhaps because I know you fling doors wide for trapped birds or you understand my need for precise tire pressure and spontaneity. Maybe it is the chocolate you melt and the condensed milk you whip or how you float tile or, in true wonder, the ways you fashion wishes from scraps. Regardless. You eventually emerge, your mountain hermit hair even more amok. I finish my list of favorite shells – shark’s eye, lettered olive, lightning whelk – and can’t wait to hear your telling of a bizarre, sinuous story that ferried you through your ills. I feed you Saltines and bubble water, and by dinnertime, forkfuls of store-bought pecan pie render new life. Fortified, here in this plenty.