Monday through Wednesday
       gave us the patio version
               of exactly enough.

Orca tumbling around
     with all sixteen weeks

     of her giant miniature confidence.

Coal holding court
     with eleven years
     of black-lab wisdom
     and the kind of sigh
                that says:

                I have seen puppies before.

NBA on.

NHL on.

The evenings doing
    that easy little thing
    where nothing dramatic happens

    and somehow

         everything feels placed
         exactly where it belongs.

You.

Me.

The dogs.

The patio.

Games filling the edges
       while the middle
            stayed soft.

Wednesday night, (damn, girl)
          you put Mr. “For Dog’s Sake” on notice.

Really put him there.

Held the line
     with the kind of clarity
     I wish the water bowls had gotten sooner.

And maybe it landed.

Thursday,
         he came back clean.

Thoroughly apologetic.

Not just to me,
    but to some others

    he’d wronged along the way.

I hope it matters.

I hope it becomes a real turn,
  not just a scared apology after impact.

For his sake.

For everybody’s.

It’s gonna be a while
         before trust
                knows where to sit
                in that room again.
But a start
    is a start.

Meanwhile,
          your Thursday got tangled
               in one of those time crunches
               that eats the good part

               right off the calendar.

So you didn’t make it
      to Irby’s patio
         for that one.

Friday came,
       another day
       swallowed by the schedule.

Orca and I held it down.

Not the same.

Still sweet.

’Cause we met Riley and Bear
       for the first time

       that won’t be the last time.

Eight-pound Orca.

Eighty-pound Riley.

Best friends
     from the jump.

Bear standing back,
     trying to figure out
     how to be a dog that big.

And still,
    the phone kept doing
          its tiny mercy:

                  *ding*.

A little thread-light.

A little Friday-you
  arriving in pieces,
  enough to make the patio
                 not empty,

          not exactly full.

Still…
      missing the obvious ingredient.

And now—
       Saturday morning is here,
       doing that rude little thing
       where the sun comes up…

       like it didn’t notice
       I miss you like crazy.

Two days apart
    is nothing for us.

We’ve done distance.

We’ve done flights.

We’ve done time zones,
               delays,
         whole cities,
         whole states,
    whole _countries_,
   getting in the way.

But two days
    is still two days

    when it’s the two days
    between me and your smile,
                   your voice,
                   your hug,

                   your you.

That’s the part
       the calendar
           keeps failing to understand.

Tomorrow,
         you’ll watch Orca
         while I do the Braves game

         with King Ron and the Northside boys.

Which is kind.

Which helps.

Which is also
      just enough of you
           to be a tease.

Monday,
       if the universe can manage
       not to trip over itself,
       should be cuddle time.

Finally.

Until then,
      I’ll take what I can get.

The memory
    of patio nights.

The sound
    of both dogs settling.

The way you make
    a normal week
      feel like it has

           somewhere better to go.

And if I can’t have
          the smile,
          the voice,
          the hug,

          the you…

          then fine.

I’ll hope
     for a _lot_

     of the good daydreams.