Valentine for Our Forty-Five Years

by Rochelle Jewel Shapiro

You, my husband, won’t always laze in our leather lounger,
one foot flat on the pale carpet, the other resting
on your knee—black socks, black jeans like a 3-D silhouette,
your veined hand splayed on the chair arm, your bifocals
slipping down your nose, your shaved head nodding
on the headrest, those lines that groove your forehead.

I won’t always be sitting here on the beige couch
with its ecru flocked flowers, noticing
the roundness of your lids as you read
from your iPad, your long-lobed Buddha ears
or the line that incises your chin. You won’t
always feel my hand in yours
during the walks in this, the winter of our lives.

My body will be the vapor of breaths not taken,
and that is why I study you from the corner