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| looks into the distant glow of the tv light |
| with remote in hand, as if reading a map |
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| spread out across the bedroom wall, navigating |
| his way through a time long forgotten. A century |
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| divided, he traces with his hand the lines on his face, |
| which others see as wrinkles, but I see as tiny scars |
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| of wisdom where innocence once lay smooth and |
| untouched – morning sand after the ocean’s first tide. |
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| He turns at the commercial break, looks into |
| my eyes and says with the simplicity of a new day, |
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| See you in the morning, my dear, and then turns off the tv |
| and drifts to that faraway place where drifters drift |
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| when they look like they are sleeping. His is not a sleep |
| that stirs in the night. Instead he falls quietly like an acorn |
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| when it falls onto the grass, and I take his hand, |
| reminding myself that it was this hand I first loved, |
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| this hand that carried me across rivers and lakes |
| and then silenced me when all I wanted was to shout. |
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| My lover, at fifty, offers himself through this hand. |
| And I love it like a flag, and place it upon my heart |
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| like a child who, after losing them for so long, |
| suddenly remembers the words to the pledge of allegiance. |
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