What I didn’t know before
was how horses simply give birth to other horses.
Not a baby by any means, not
a creature of liminal spaces,
but already a four-legged beast hellbent on walking,
scrambling after the mother.

A horse gives way to another horse
and then suddenly there are
two horses, just like that.

That’s how I loved you.
You, off the long train from Red Bank carrying
a coffee as big as your arm, a bag with two
computers swinging in it unwieldily at your
side. I remember we broke into laughter
when we saw each other.

What was between us wasn’t a fragile thing
to be coddled, cooed over.
It came out fully formed, ready to run.
~Ada Limón “What I Didn’t Know Before”

It felt fully formed and meant to be right from the beginning, now over forty years ago. We both recognized we were ready to run unafraid, trusting our legs were strong enough to take us wherever life would lead.

We don’t need to run as often now, but we are hellbent on walking through this world together as long and far as possible, laughing and loving as often as we can.

We didn’t know it could be like this. We just needed to wait for it to be born fully formed when the time was right.