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219 In Troth Forget the birthdays. For me you’re younger than ever. Nothing is truer than that. Tonight I thought of life without you, and I died—no one to kid or kiss, no one to say that blue is not my color, no one to shuck mussels with from the same bowl, no one to live the patience that is love in waiting. You’re always new to know—a mate I choose all over every day. You make our lives seem one long day with no past tense. I love you for the times you’ve slowed me down before I would have blundered. I love you for the hundred ways you saw what I would never see until you’d seen it first. We’re nip and tuck, saddle and boot, a pair of gloves, a study in rhyme from A to Z without a flub between. 220 We’re grateful so for one lone son whose music loops the globe, grandchildren three, and Dawn who keeps all five in love together and intact. If I could make right now eternal as a song, I would. Impossible, of course. But not the wanting to . . . That’s why I want impossibility to last, regardless. That’s happiness. ...

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