Here is to
The promise we kept
After sleepless nights
Unraveled
Over dialogues held
Sitting vigil
During times we’d feared
Wouldn’t end

In that distant past
Which loomed
And casted doubts
Like shadows
From being wrong
Before meeting
Until we realized
Love was more –

Never chance
But fated encounters
Amid daydreams lost
Feeling empty
While nervous prayers
Wrote stories
Between kindred hearts
Soon tied

Always lonely
Longing for hope
Leaving tiny threads
Across decades
With devotions real
Though discouraged
By assuming pain
Wrote our plot,

Not God
Whose heavenly book
Triumphs luck
Through intentional wisdom
Proving symbols shown
Signal graces
Beyond this flesh
We endure.

I vow now
Nodding at fate
How every breath
Becomes special
Sharing room here
Besides my partner
Once believed
An airless wish –

Yielding oxygen
Promising life
Building faith
Through certain affection
As married souls
Define meaning
Where embers heal
Keeping warm,

Still undeserved
Though immense
Yet comparing flames
So miraculous
They’re twins
Among rare cinders
Too special
For being apart.

• J. Pigno