For Keeps Lover Poem by Lonnie Hicks

So Time I thread through
the needle eye
and stretch it like taffy
across my life,

and weave it like a tapestry.

You are embroidered there;
major needle work here
and your smile
beams on my quilt
which
covers me in sleep.

So it is the little things-
which like statuettes
parade across
my double mirror dresser;

mementos
I guess
but more to me like monuments;
your friendship ring;
the tennis bracelet,
the prom corsage
and of course the photographs.

I see the nightclub print,
the holiday scene
and, of course, our oldest's
graduation.

You know
we too
are each other's memories
of times past
and our youthful youth;

when you,
the Handsome You
and I a Beauty
wallowed in the unconsciousness
youthfulness enjoys
oblivious to their own
beauty
or maybe not.

But nonetheless
nothing's changed inside of us
I'm still nineteen
in my own
minds eye
and wonderfully
also in yours.

That is to me
is the miracle.

Nothing changes
from Beauty's Eye
and in the eye
of one's
For Keeps
Lover.