Nineteenth

"Remember life?" you asked
first morning of our twentieth
year together. Vaccinations completed
we can plan again, perhaps even dream.

So that this nineteenth is more
than ordinary cause for celebration,
not yet silver, certainly not gold
(we'll not make that last one I'm guessing).
But significant because of what we've weathered
together year that stretches out behind us now
a tale of time not lost but not quite kept.

We'll return to routine pleasures we enjoyed
as spectators, with performance spaces filled
again we trust and hope. I'll be able
to get haircuts soon. Perhaps we'll travel.

And so, as this spring gathers around us
you plant pansies again and tell me,
returning from the garden store, how that nice
fellow whose name I don't recall
put your purchases in the back of the car,
petted Maisie the dog, and gave you all the skinny
about the next shipment of bedding plants;

whereas I, on the other hand, recall
your lovely green eyes and how at seventy
you still call me Fox.