1

Saffine is blue,

beautiful, divine, sublime,

and it's you.

No haiku captures your grace;

too cheeky for saijiki.

2

For every season

would proudly speak your form,

tease, humanity,

your soul a true gravity

my orbit fails to escape.

3

Bent blade from butcher

never severs cephalopod.

Izakaya pork.

Surfing drunks laugh at bung rings.

Sushi chefs close no karma.

4

But my dull blade wit

fails to hit the market price.

my prize, your kind eyes

reading poetry daily.

Tanka awkward to praise thee:

5

Saffine explorer

pauses to watch trimming finch

tend bachelor buttons.

And I the awestruck glutton

flitted to every eyelash,

6

Saffine tree

--soaks up images

--dance in the breeze.

Like a dream nature bows low

to your solid base and glow.

7

Saffine warrior.

Living is in the dying.

Salt remains unlicked.

But ah, the bliss in your "no"

echoes through hungover nights.

8

Saffine carny

points to turtle shades.

A good sized bite.

Seen by your keenest eyespan.

Jealous. I watch waves often.

9

Dust marked window pane.

Mantis on the oleander.

A saffine smile.

We watched leaves grow by hours

and I never bored of you.

10

Saffine thief.

Preparing next year's garden

with driest seeds found.

No matter the failure cost,

you never lost hope or love.

11

New strand of veggie.

Saffine etymologist

classifies my face,

naming hairy tomato

for the blush they oft causes.

12

With each new season

they gives my life new reason

to study changes

like Bowie, one eye's showy

made squat and shimmer in awe.

13

Eighteen years a fool.

"Don't believe in modern love,"

well I'm praying cool

in this chapel of bedsheet;

burning gideons with style.

14

I know it's been a while
since I waxed for your praise,
but every sin's a blessing
to have you tarnish my

15

good name. I never blamed
for what I lost. I took the trip
and saw your spirit drop,
as part time and furries online,
took the whole of your creative

16

draw. Drawing on the emptiness
I'd know from then to toddler piss
I might've helped your slow descent
but couldn't ever replace what
you lost. Like Miranda singing
through tears, I would've tried
for harmony but only avoided jeers
by the grace of your never-ending

17

love. As I became a math scholar
you'd have died in my absence.
So that black miss, of our life
unlived, was never divine, or a gift,
but the side of my only I dismissed

18

to take your pure trust and learn
from your sweetest rebuke. For you,
of all the people I had ever known,
were the only sage wise and worth
to bring my folly back to reality.

19

So I happily dismissed a life of logic
without bliss, to be your partner honest.
And all the spoiled bottles,
and all the ruined reviews,
and all the loathsome spew,
                       driving wrong way,
                       hating my naysay,
                       suffering a bird's hate,
                       owning in-law's disdain,
doesn't take from the total

20

of you spontaneous
and vulnerable,
of your mind bigger than books.
Your kind killed all my crooked thoughts
and made me better not by standards
not by checklists and cashed reciepts

21

but by simply loving and always believing
that I wouldn't die young;
no matter how pretty.
Because no matter how many days I ruin
you are still there waiting
for me to earn forgiveness.

22

You inspired me to write free.
You made haiku our legacy.
You taught me the joy of poetry.
You opened the door of my misery,
and gave me beauty when it's
a mirror that I see.

23

You are most divine,

because you are faith I find

every day and time

I quake to end my hurt mind.

Saffine lover, I stay true.

24

Forgive my blubber

tanka for this year of love,

and silly senryu.

Eighteen years don't bore me yet

nor concessions break spirit.

2025

Happy anniversary.

Partners irreversibly.