The Tide

Today is our anniversary
and resurrects my belief
that time runs out like a tide
and no moon brings it back.
I study my wife’s face.
Where once it bloomed with
the soft skin of a petal
it now hardens in the wrinkles
and paleness of her age.
I take her for a mirror
of us all with our scars
of failure, bruises of grief.
I do not ask to change her
for the girl she was but
my thoughts would trouble her
if she heard them. I add
a hope of her forgiveness
to what speaks to my eye.