Max Reif’s most recent poem to appear here was “Two Kinds of People” (November 2018). 

I realize as I wrap my small plaid “blankie”
around my neck before we begin
to watch a movie on a winter night

The very walls that demarcate our space
from the redwoods and eucalyptuses beyond
are filled with our longing and love,
making almost as if we’ve built this house ourselves.

The mug I drink my tea from.
The paintings on the walls.
our Clavinova keyboard, unused these days
and covered with objects
like that Mexican fish sculpture
we got at Carmel Beach.

Upstairs, the adjacent wood-frame beds
we commissioned, so as to sleep beside one another peacefully.

The units of our lives are love.
Home is an extension of our bodies,
the body of our union.