Continuation when our hair is dull and gray i’ll still adore you so, my dear i’ll listen to your music even when i cannot hear if the wind sweeps back your cheeks and slowly wears them to the bone and the starlight leaves your eyes and searches for a different home if the sun burns peppered holes in all the soles of all your shoes then in this life, the next, the next, i will keep loving you when the newest shirts you bought on sale are nearly half my age and your favorite books have yellow crinkles stamped on every page when your skin falls limp around your shoulders, pools of what has been and your smile wobbles loosely set atop your trembling chin the shirts will clothe, the books will flip, your smile will still be true and in this life, the next, the next, i will keep loving you the form you take when you come back, i swear i will discover it takes more than an eternal death to keep me from my lover i’ll find you someday, keep you safe from work and wear and tear be i, a single stem of dandelion floating past your hair if i’m the softest slide of leaf on shoe, a cloudless sky, your favorite blue then in this life, the next, the next, i will keep loving you
Amelia Gattuso ‘23
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