sometimes when you aren't looking,
I gaze at you the way
a painter gazes at his artwork in a museum,
like you are mine but not mine all at once.

my eyes run along the scar on your forehead
to the brown leather shoes you have on your feet
and my hands comb through your thick, black hair
and trace lines on the back of your pianist hands.

I am inspecting you silently and wondering
why and how you have become mine
and asking myself in tiny whispers
why and how you will eventually leave me.

but you bicker and laugh with me
like you have not a care in the world--
like this moment with me will keep replaying for eternity
until we both drop down from old age and die--
and for a moment, I believe that too
so I pull a veil over my worries and smile.