Gravity

You are a man of the universe, and I, a woman of the world. Our home is a classroom. You talk me through the big ideas as though I were one of your students and I squint at you. I learn things while the tea's brewing, while the glass is fogging above the kitchen sink. I learn things when the floorboard creaks and when the window rattles. You stitch the cosmos into the lining of our walls and I burrow into your brain; I will do this for many years. I will break things and mend things and learn and you will ask me questions about what is happening in the city tonight, in the world this week. Our house is a cafeteria and a town hall, a haven, a headquarters. You listen to the people who pour in and pour out. You make sandwiches and ask softly what else you can do. You find breaks in Space-Time and I fill them with the news. You frown at the papers and ask me what I think and you learn some things from me too. You cheer on the kids on compost duty and clean up the mud tracks and marvel at a crate of dusty tomatoes as though they were a galaxy up close. Last night I curled under your arm because the universe was too vast and nothing in my day felt relevant. You held my feet and told me that when we stood in the street for hours last week you'd suddenly noticed gravity again.