Matryrdom

We started at the first station, Mercury

The heat was a fever in a Reno motel

I remember the weight of the key in my palm

Number one on a brass tag, heavy and warm

Then came Venus, the second stop on the map

You wore a vintage dress from 1964

We didn't need the light to see the truth

Everything felt like a beginning then

It is a long walk from the sun to the ice

Eight markers placed along the interstate of us (Moving through the dark)

We are keeping pace with the turning year

Finding the dignity in the distance

The third house was Terra, solid and green

We planted maples and watched the roots take hold

The labor was quiet, folding laundry at dusk

Then Mars arrived, the fourth and hardest winter

Arguments like iron striking flint in the kitchen

We learned that red is the color of survival (We survived)

It wasn't a war, just a season of heat

It is a long walk from the sun to the ice

Eight markers placed along the interstate of us

We are keeping pace with the turning year

Finding the dignity in the distance

Five was Jupiter, vast and full of gravity

The children came and the house grew wide

Six was Saturn, the ring of a silver anniversary

Seven was Uranus, leaning into the tilt of age

The numbers don't lie, they just stack up high

Like old newspapers in the garage

Now we reach the eighth, Neptune, the blue frontier

It is quiet out here, far from the initial fire

The air is thin but the view is clear

I hold your hand through a wool mitten

The passage of time is a physical weight

We are millions of miles from where we began

And I would walk every inch of it again

Eight stops

One heart

Still moving