She’d been depressed at seeing how her parents had aged in just a couple of years. She hadn’t really contemplated time much before, it had seemed an endless resource.

Seeing her lying listlessly in bed, he asked “Are you ok?”
“I’m getting old,” she admitted, closing her eyes to conserve energy.
“You’re turning 20,” he stated dryly, somewhere in the darkness.
“Still,” she said, “You should know that I’ll start wrinkling, any day now, like a deflating balloon.”
“Yeah, I was afraid of that.” He said. She opened her eyes and looked at him soberly.

“You’re almost 27, are you getting crows feet?” He flinched away from her outstretching hand.
“No,” He responded confidently, but he checked his reflection in her dorm room mirror.
“Soon, your libido will flag,” she informed him solemnly, taking his hand for comfort.
He slipped off the bed and gently closed the bedroom door with a casual swipe of his hand.
“You should start eating fiber,” she gasped, “and retirement planning!”

“I’ve got a few good months left..” he said, as he came back to the bed and started unbuttoning the top of her yellow dress, “I might need someone, in the medical field, to keep an eye on me.”
“I could do that,” she smiled, as his button work progressed, “I do need more clinical hours.”

I think, those wrinkles on your face
The ones you want to erase
The ones that appear with every laugh
Are waiting to be shaped
Into musical notes
That form the melody
Of the sound of healing

I can read the lines between your eyes
Every emotional hand-me-down

...Relax...

Uncrinkle the nose, the mouth and forehead...

Throw away those thoughts instead.

The way she smiles as she walks,
The way she jokes when she talks.
The serious expression her face takes on,
The way her eyes are never drawn.
The feeling when she hugs me to her chest,
And all my problems go to rest.
The nickname that she gave to me,
Always spoken so playfully.
The slight wrinkles on her forehead,
From life's problems that she was too early exposed.
This is the girl that I love,
A fighter,
A survivor,
A warrior.
Though we will never be together,
My love for her will never falter.

I’m older if not wiser
Can’t *** like a geyser
And I think I can hear the bells toll.

They’re a little less distant
And a bit more insistent
And no longer seem quite as droll.

Out the corner of my eye
I think to espy
A dark figure with malevolent intent.

A voice with a tone
Like the scraping of bone
that leaves me whining and spent.

Is it getting closer?
Is it there in the toaster?
I worry perhaps more than I should.

But I’d be lying
There is no denying
I wish now that I’d done more good.

thank you for
looking at me
with such kindness
in your eyes,
love in your veins
and warmth in
the wrinkles
surrounding
your eyelashes.

Imagine you and I, rocking chairs on a front porch after time has left it’s mark on us.
The wrinkles on your forehead tell the sweetest stories.
I hope we’ve kicked all the things that had their grip on us.
Imagine you and I, bathing beneath golden rays with our backs against the earth.
The concept of time has no hold on us.
I’ll love you long after this body fails me

See
by Michael R. Burch

See how her hair has thinned: it doesn’t seem
like hair at all, but like the airy moult
of emus who outraced the wind and left
soft plumage in their wake. See how her eyes
are gentler now; see how each wrinkle laughs,
and deepens on itself, as though mirth took
some comfort there, then burrowed deeply in,
outlasting winter. See how very thin
her features are—that time has made more spare,
so that each bone shows, elegant and rare.
For life remains undimmed in her grave eyes,
and courage in her still-delighted looks:
each face presented like a picture book’s.
Bemused, she blows us undismayed goodbyes.

Keywords/Tags: Elderly, woman, grandmother, thin, thinning, hair, airy, emu, moult, soft, plumage, wrinkles, laugh lines, frail, gaunt, bones, winter, grave, eyes, courage, laughter, family, gathered, bedside, kisses, hugs, goodbyes, farewells, life, death, photo album, pictures, photos, photographs

Published by The Eclectic Muse, Love Me Knots (an anthology of the top 100 contemporary love poems), Nutty Stories (South Africa), Black Medina, The New Formalist, Better Than Starbucks, Potcake Chapbooks, Strange Roads, Sonnetto Poesia, Litera (UK), Poems About, Poetry Life & Times, MahMag (in a Farsi translation by Dr. Mahnaz Badihian), Somewhere Along The Beaten Path (Anthology), Freshet, Life & Legends, Famous Poets & Poems, Short Quotes & Poems (listed in the top 10 short poems) and Victorian Violet Press. “See” won 3rd place in the 2003 Writer’s Digest Rhyming Poetry contest, out of over 18,000 overall entries, and was published in Writer’s Digest’s The Year’s Best Writing.