Love in old age

He has wrapped his skin about
her bones. She moves he flexes,
their parchment lives, intimate as
knuckles clasped, knobbed fingers
interwound, each other’s ivy.
And words, allusive strokes of a
Master’s pencil, spoken quiet,
the quiet drop of water in a
shadowed cavern, clear, rain
fallen on hills a hundred years ago.
I am behind them on the pavement
and wonder at their oneness. I
pass them, and suddenly, she laughs.
The sound envelopes him in light
that mirrors in her face. My arm in yours
our love has wiped away the tears
and trouble and following the blue-veined
map that’s printed on our entwined
hands, still laughing and still shining,
walk on until I cannot see them more.