What I Mean When I Say His Name

I mean the way he folds the map even though the phone knows where we are. I mean the scar above his eyebrow from a story that changes every time he tells it and gets better. I mean the sound of him making breakfast like a man who has been personally offended by the egg. I mean Tuesday nights when he reads out loud to me— not because I've asked, but because he found a paragraph that couldn't wait, and his voice does this thing to other people's words that makes them sound like they were always meant for this room, this lamp, this hour. I mean the quiet thing. The way he checks the locks at night— not once but twice— and thinks I haven't noticed this small, repeated act of faith that the world is a place worth securing. When I say his name I mean the whole ordinary catastrophe of loving someone so completely that the word for it hasn't been invented yet. His name is the closest I can get.