signature moves

Every so often, when I sign my name,
the person behind the counter says,
“That’s quite a signature,”
as though I’ve done nothing but scribble.
“No one else can imitate it,”
is always my answer,
“that’s what makes it my signature.”

My morning movements are as much
a signature as my recognizable scratch,
my hands moving from muscle
memory to trim the strawberries
and stand them up to slice, then
splaying them out like pages, and
surrounding them with the blueberries

I picked myself the other day;
they taste like the neighborhood.
The fruit sits on a plate we’ve had
as long as we’ve been married,
when I first began to work on a
new signature because my name
changed along with yours,
as we wrote something new together.

And then there’s your coffee:
mostly-milk-one-Splenda-put-it-in-
the-microwave-for-one-minute-thirty-five-
seconds-before-topping-it-off.
My hands move with the same confidence
I show when I sign my name.
This is who I am.

This is who we are.
I can’t think of one without the other.
The daily mixture of fresh and
familiar, what is known scratched
on the surface of this new day,
held together by a hyphen,
my favorite piece of punctuation.

Peace,
Milton