I used to wake up
To the smell of coffee every morning,
Soft notes of french vanilla
Drifting through the door,
Sweet and steady as your voice
Calling me to breakfast.

I never needed to drink it
To feel the warmth it carried.
You’d offer me a cup anyway,
And somehow, that was enough.

After breakfast came the day’s small rituals:
Grocery lists scribbled in the margins of old mail,
Coupons clipped and tucked in your purse,
The two of us heading out together
To chase the sales of the week.

Funny how the smallest things
Grow larger in their absence and
Become the things you’d give anything to relive.

The warm plate of nachos
You’d make in between commercial breaks
Of shows you’d never heard of,
But watched so we each had company.
The ice cream quickly turning to soup
Because the AC was never the first option.
Chili and rice, cottage cheese and noodles.

In the kitchen, I’d ask for seconds.
I see now it wasn’t just the food I wanted more of.
It was the sound of your fork against the plate,
The timbre of your voice filling the quiet.

Your love, once ordinary,
Has become what I hunger for most.

After dinner, the house would settle.
Dishes drying in their racks,
When you’d reach for your keys.

I’ll miss
How the road loosened your memories,
The way you’d point and smile
At what the years had spared:
A burger place, your childhood home,
Nights made holy by youth.
Each story drew the car a little closer
To the edge of the road,
Memory steering more than sight.

When the stories ran out,
We’d drive in silence for a while,
The ghosts of old laughter still with us,
Until memory made way for quiet.

But you’re no longer here,
And those moments have become all I have.

I think of you most
When I’m standing in a checkout line,
Or stirring something on the stove,
Or driving home with the music low.

You’d smile at how much of you
I realize I carry each day.
How I buy too much cheese,
How I hum when I cook,
How I let the ice cream melt,
As I’m pulled into a show I was hesitant to watch,
And how, when I tuck my son in,
Your fox waits beside him.

Maybe that’s the point.
Your love was never just one thing.
It was all of it,
The coffee, the coupons, the curb.

A little bit of everything,
pieced together like a quilt,
still holding us close.