On the Table

I have stopped sending you flowers at this time of year
for you do not need it anymore, and I obliged.

We are past the color of roses, and their artful packaging
of rosemaries, sweet peas and pansies.

We are past the greeting cards, love notes,
and love letters written by hand.

We know love better than all these,
though we kept the night creams and day creams

and that mirror where we always see yesterday
drifting farther from us.

I still see my beautiful bride, whose eyes caught mine,
and whose laughter will haunt me in my loneliness.

Hold my hands, please, and promise not to let go
of memories, of who I am to you, of who you are to me

and everything else in between, for we will never be
just a photograph of two people on the table.