Patience

She teaches me patience

the way dusk teaches the river:

slowly, without apology.

Her silence arrives first,

a held breath between messages,

a comma stretched across hours.

I learn to sit inside it,

palms open,

counting heartbeats instead of seconds.

When the phone finally rings

her voice is still putting on earrings,

still choosing between the red dress

and the one that makes her laugh

because it’s impossible to zip alone.

I listen to the small chaos of her morning

and feel the minute hand loosen its grip.

She is late to every date

the way tides are late to the moon:

not careless,

simply answering a different clock.

I wait on the corner,

collar up against November,

watching strangers hurry past

with somewhere to be.

None of them know

how sweet the air becomes

when the only thing left to do

is wait for her.

Then she appears,

breath fogging, cheeks bright,

half apology, half triumph,

and the lesson lands complete:

everything worth arriving

takes exactly as long as it takes.

I smile, offer my arm,

already softer at the edges.

She has made a patient man of me

one unhurried minute at a time.