My family and I would put together puzzles
at Christmas time, stooping over a card table
eyeing up pieces, the ones with the curves
and the ones with the loops,
all crowding together to rush the fragments
back into place.
And without fail,
every year the same deranged cousin
would snatch up the final
piece,
ceasing the completion.
Every year I wondered if
he would let it slide, just once
to connect it back up into a harmonic union.

It goes without saying that those puzzles on
Christmas Eve were my life before
a late December date when I bumped
into you,
getting on thick as thieves,
slyly grinning like foxes,
partners in crime.
You’ve become the final piece
to this completion,
your loops sliding into these curves,
fitting into place.
The world finally let you out of its
grasp,
falling into my open palm
to put where it belongs
(on the card table inside my ribcage).