On Love's Reckoning

This is a record of a love that was real. *Love''s Reckoning* began as six poems written in the dark — small offerings left on a kitchen counter for a man who was, for a season, home. It became a chronicle: the bloom, the kingdom, the light changing, and the quiet aftermath in which the woman remained. I write what I cannot say out loud. That is the whole craft of it. A poem is not a decoration of feeling; it is the most honest shape I can give to something too large to hold in the mouth. When the house was unfinished and the man was sealing pipes on the floor, I wrote *The Warmth of Mr G*. When the first crack appeared and I tried not to name it, I wrote *What He Could Not Give Equally*. When the silence came, I sent *Withering Blooms* into it. Some of these poems are tender. Some are accusations. Some are forgiveness. They are all true at once. I offer them here not as a monument to grief but as proof that a woman can love completely, be demolished, and still stand — still becoming, still unfinished, still reaching toward the sky.