They said that marriage leaves a mark,
so I checked myself today
to see if I’d been changed.
Did life’s abundant traumas
leave something etched on me?
A hiker’s blaze to show
our lean and lively transit?
I expected very little,
some faded recollections
from the harshest of our travels,
but found instead the lasting prints
that you had left on me.
Not doleful days in cold and bitter ink,
but a fine and steady pen stroke—
of your grace and wisdom.
So—did you also likewise find,
when checking in your mirror,
a mark that speaks of me?
-- Scott P. on July 3, 2022
