"Happy Birthday Dearest Wife"

You want to say it to her any way you can...

as a special surprise, or so that glint in your eye

seems to tell me. And yet, I don’t know how

to help...spend hours, or so it seems, coaxing

you to form the words with your mouth.

‘Copy me!’ I insist, just like Gran did,

I’m sure, when you were a kid...Only

your brain doesn’t comprehend

your best intentions. 

I throw in the towel. “Try writing it,

instead,” I suggest.  Give you a pen,

but your  ‘good’ hand, is anything but. 

All fingers and thumbs, you are.  To think

it had come to this...you who knew everything,

when I asked why the sky was blue, where

did butterflies shelter when it rained. 

And yet, I’ll give this to you, you don’t

give up... not easily; intent on getting it right,

finally, you take the bit between your teeth. 

One, then two, then three, spidery kisses

at the bottom of the page where I write

what I think you’d have done...sign

your name...with love, written between

each line. Your smile tells me, for once

in my life, I did something right.