After

by Arthur McCaster

Past languid days, their lives
were played in tempo allegretto.
Past their first–year slips, what survived
was their own unique libretto.
Beyond the anxious years of children,
the wile, the whimsy, the little cash to spare;
beyond the vacuous temptations that bedevil men
and women alike — that sad, ambivalent affair —
they arrive at an hour beyond all foreseeing.
She takes a moment alone to grieve,
recalls their incredible lightness of being,
then touching the edge of his starched sleeve
and placing her inconstant hand just so
she does not feel the cold.