And he, like me, having reached
the age of Medicare, sounds as

happily besotted as I’ve ever known
him, 3,000 miles away by phone.

I haven’t heard her side of the story,
perhaps never will, but I hope she

understands that his occasional
bluster shields a tender heart

belonging to one who, half a lifetime
ago, after we’d put the college newspaper

to bed, would read E.E. Cummings
to me in our bed, desire and pleasure,

poetry and language unfurling
between us like a prayer—

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing…

as it must be to him and his beloved
now, too. I wish them all the poetry

and romance and handholding in
day-to-blesséd-day discovery,

to live and grow in love, which is,
after all, what each of us is here to do.

Amen.

•••

(for Curtis)