Shoeboxes in the upstairs prove
when veins were tight and hair was
that shining, gleaming, streamin,’
flaxen, waxen stuff of the 70s.
You would laugh if you could see
him in a toupee, shoulders broadened
against the end of a night shift, billy club
swinging steady by his side;
She, beautiful like Grace Kelly,
with high definition cheek bones,
her smile Rainbow Bright enough
to call the curtains down
and leave them that way forever.

But red velvet shrouds over them still;
His shoulders curve under tax forms and
knee replacements, cancer spots on his bladder and nose.
She plays with the extra turkey skin on her neck,
frowns at the grooves around her mouth.
The audience sees more than we want to.

They fade from unblemished black and white
into garish Technicolor,
Twenty-nine years
of dinner, ***** dishes left in the sink,
root canals, cat food cans,
******* stickers, laundry to fold, that milk
might be a week old.

They go on and I love them
for the death of romance,
for the things they've folded away in shoeboxes
for me to find.