What We Were to Each Other
We did not know we were happy —
happiness was just the air that summer,
the way she knew which apple to choose
and I knew where the creek went quiet.
There was a language we spoke only then,
made of glances, of running, of the particular
afternoon that belonged entirely to us
and asked nothing of us but to stay.
I have looked for her in every friendship since —
that easy, wordless knowing.
The way she said my name
like it was something she had found and kept.
We grew, as children do, in different directions.
But somewhere in me she is still waiting
at the edge of the yard, in the gold light,
patient as a thing that was always true.
artwork and poetry ©Stacy Stephens