It fell like a leaf from a tree at year’s end,
faded and crisp, a photo drifting to the floor.
She was there, thirty years before, wheat jeans,
chambray shirt, straw colored hair spun to gold.
Who sees me now? Invisible to the eyes of the glorious young,
a nimbus of white wreathing an old man's face, desire
untrammelled by age. She threaded my heart, embroidered me,
sewed patchwork into a life. Cradling children snuggled between,
we rocked ourselves to sleep each night, dreaming a wish
to throttle time.