The only thing I have worth framing

A poem about the things, the moments, the people we hang on to

There’s an old photo of us on my windowsill,
Sitting there top-heavy in defiance of any coming storm or cat
senseless enough to push it over the edge and remove it from its rightful place
between my faithful box of matches and your atlas with the busted spine, you know the one:

It was my birthday, and we’re
standing on your balcony with the five AM east river behind us-
I’m wearing the paper crown you made and you’re kissing me with your eyes half shut,
middle finger out to shield your tipsy peace from the drunken paparazzi

And this isn’t in the shot, so no one else will ever see how we were
holding hands behind our backs, trailing back into each other’s warmth,
Your shivering fingers wrapped around mine like a promise,
Like that was the way the inventor of holding hands had always meant for things to go

Your hand around my hand around a birthday candle burning at both ends,
Like you and I both knew how happy we could be as soon as one of us let go