Can you grow old
with someone thirty years younger
Will you listen to music
without experiences attached
Can you look at her mother
and not see your old prom date
Will you laugh at her jokes
with the punch line unknown
Can you watch her enliven
as you worry in secret
Will you accept both her children
without rejecting your own
Can you tell her the truth
wrapped in lies of forgetting
Will you walk into the sunset
—still holding her hand

(The New Room: January, 2022)