When you visit the
grandchildren in Berlin,
and savour their sweet breath
of future dreams, or look out at the
Ponte Vecchio through the open window
we found at the Uffizi, or again give bowed
thanks in the landscapes of the dead at Arlington,
or Ypres, you will feel my cold hand warm in yours.

Wherever we wandered, and wondered, infused with
elation at the chance that brought us the other,
I am with you and you see my look of
limitless love, and smile with the
beauty of it, even as silent,
secret salted waters rise
to drown your ever
shattered heart.

When eye finally stills
and all that we are cools to
nothing, or memory wanes, creates
shapes dim in dementia’s fettering, pressing
fog, only then will our love be another’s memory.