Lying there beside her, I smell her skin, the warmth of her
I see, or imagine, in the gray light, the wrinkles
I've put there and I feel the storm of our livesShe's told me her period's wrong and that her breasts hurt.
For months we've tried to conceive
and come to this.I put my hand on her back beneath the covers
intimate against her sleeping
I would know her skin anywhere.I begin to feel age and our mortality.
Even now my body says I press too hard
that I cannot become what I once was.And she who grows more precious to me each year
grows more ripe for He who reaps us all.
I touch her back and feel her breath ... in this moment.Gallagher
3 April 83, SJC
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —