Anniversary Conversation

Twenty-one years, but only three
poems, counting from the double sonnet
I wrote for our fourteenth and the
nineteenth just yesterday, it seems.
For sure I’ll not miss another
with a poem.

And speaking of poems, have I ever
told you there are poems that hide
in the crinkles of your eyes
that wink when you smile over small
victories, not that anything you do
is small? And to carry the conversation
further, here we are, more than twice
retired now, still in our old house
together, still finding ways to make do
after the pandemic that isn’t really over.
I, still following your lead down throngs
of blessing, loving the songs you sing
to Maisie the dog going up to bed; have
I ever told you I think your voice is
lovely or that Maisie sometimes gets
confused with Katie that was
when you sing?

Several times in the last few days
before this twenty-first you’ve asked me
did I think we’d ever make it this far?
I don’t believe I thought at all, though ours
is a late-life marriage. I just followed
you like Maisie the dog, noting as you lit
the world’s candle that I couldn’t bear
any more of life outside its
ring of light.

     —March 22, 2023, for Kathleen