Tree rings

Underneath his skin, there lives a younger man.

He knows she sees him sometimes

in the edge of his smile when he sees a certain production

which is not a play to him, but three glorious months of hell

of forgotten lines and secret kisses and never enough sleep

until he finally plucked up enough courage at exactly the wrong moment

to suggest the banality of coffee and a chat

in the bounce of a curl descending from the pristine plowed field

of his moon-and-stars hair, a coil of twilight grey

that transforms his face, wiping out wrinkle and fatigue, echoing

the midnight coil that fell from the same place on that pale afternoon

he met her

in the bunching of his muscles as he lifts his daughter

(so heavy now, he used to marvel at the lightness of this masterpiece

that sits solidly in his arms, becoming more and more her own)

and they remember- we used to row and climb and box

where now we only lift and curl and lift and curl again

in the slight, ever-so-slight, widening of his eyes

when he picks up a complex kit that promises

it will take at least a full day, even now, to put together a perfect scale model

of a jet or tank or battleship, and he can almost smell the glue

frustation and achievement and lost skin from youthful fingers

Underneath his skin, there live a thousand younger men,

concentric men that never fade away

that only grow distant

and are never quite gone.