Welcome

  Death Do Us Part

You are walking backwards, my love,

backwards toward your death.

You won't turn around to face it.

You won't even peek over a shoulder.

You are either remarkably incurious

or terribly afraid. 

Or perhaps this is a simple choice,

a choice appropriate for a man like you,

a photographer whose insatiable eyes

choose to feast on every last picture

that this world has to offer you,

miraculous images like the aged oak trees

suspending their fifty-ton limbs

as if they were buoyant as air,

or the tiny spider scuttling across the table

on legs almost too microscopic

to be seen with the naked eye. 

Your eyes always have been naked,

with no veil between them

and your beloved world of images,

visuals that were your visions

that you ached to re-gift to the world.

What visions do you see now in my eyes,

as I hold both your hands, walking forward

as you walk backwards towards our separation? 

Look closely, as you well know how,

into my eyes and see my undying love

as I match you step for step until

in merciful unknowing you cross the threshold.