Can you grow old

with someone thirty years younger

Will you listen to music

without experiences attached

Can you look at her mother

and not see your old prom date

Will you laugh at her jokes

with the punch line unknown

Can you watch her enliven

as you worry in secret

Will you accept both her children

without rejecting your own

Can you tell her the truth

wrapped in lies of forgetting

Will you walk into the sunset

—still holding her hand 

(The New Room: January, 2022)