Embers

It must be law or politics making you so animated
as you converse with an old friend, leaning casually
against the gleaming buffet bearing its load of hors
d'oeuvres, your lanky form slim as ever, trousers
draping elegantly. I can't help but admire your profile,
modestly jutting chin and aquiline nose surrounded
by the fuller face of late middle age. Now, thinning
dun-colored hair softens your freckled leathery face,
more handsome than ever,

than in our youth when I was unabashedly hungry
for your lean body, when we spent many a Sunday
afternoon making slow sweet love on the coverlet
of the double bed in our tiny Chicago apartment.
When you couldn't get enough of loving me. My

desire has slowed to admiration, but I wonder if you
can still see in me your nineteen-year-old bride, silk
billowing from a waist you could circle with your own
two hands, the gold of my hair glinting in your blue
eyes wet with emotion, me thinking, Yours, all yours.
Yours at last. Yours to this day.

first published in Bellowing Ark

also published in Illinois State Poetry Society 

also published in ISPS 20ith Anniversary Anthology

also published in GLORY IN THE ORDINARY Chapbook