He tells her as he watches out his window,
tracing the knots in the shining mahogany
with trembling leather fingers, wrinkled by time
(57 years since the first time he watched her smile,
the breeze blowing her hair and the scent of hyacinths).
This year like every year,
he thinks how strange it is that time floats on
(the seeds of a dandelion,
flying as she pursed her tender lips)
roots itself deep in the ground and grows
(in meadows of grass where they lay on blankets
drinking in sun and cold iced tea)
One becomes dozens, a hundred, a hundred more
From across the street, he hears
the dull 3 o’clock roar of a motor.
The children have gone in;
the shadows lengthen and the seconds hold their breath
—then the shriek of the motor, razing all in its path
spitting out the dregs of half a century alone
(48 years since he got the news
sweating in the sticky summer air, unbelieving).
He turns away from the window,
sets down the mahogany box