Moon Over Marrakech

Moon over Marrakech...
You turned my phone face down
beside two glasses of mint tea.

Twenty-two years sat between us
in the riad courtyard after ten.
We knew the bills, the school runs,
how to forgive our oldest friends.
But your ring lay in a brass dish;
my work kept lighting up the screen.
You said, “I don’t need us younger.
I need you here with me.”

We walked beneath the market lanterns.
Mint tea stained my cuff.
One silver hair escaped your scarf,
and I remembered how you laughed
before attention turned to duty.
I had kept our life together.
I had forgotten how to see you.

Moon over Marrakech,
silver in your hair, my hand in yours again.
We didn’t turn young; we turned true.
Under that moon, I came back to you.

Six months later, Friday evening,
the brass dish waits beside the kettle.
Both our phones go face down.
We pour the tea and tell the truth.
Silence still arrives;
now we ask what hides beneath it.

You said work was where I learned to flee.
I said fixing every problem
was easier than letting you see me.
When your laugh returns without warning,
I let the moment stay unfinished.
I let the present hold the past.

No moon repaired what I neglected.
No city made the distance leave.
You asked me to be present,
and I finally chose to be.
I had missed my wife for years
while sleeping inches from her skin.

Moon over Marrakech,
silver in your hair, my hand in yours again.
We never turned young; we turned true.
Every Friday, I come back to you.

Two quiet phones. Two cups of tea.
Your eyes still teaching mine to see.
Moon over Marrakech—
how we chose to be.