In Memoriam

JoAnn Marie-Louise Romanelli Scarangello

Her 1963 high school graduation photo.  She was 17.  I was 20.

We married over the frantic objection of our parents before the year was out.

She is gone eleven years on April 19

.

I spied her in a coffee shop
where I saw her once before
a body electric, fashioned by Eros
coming through the door

a perfectly turned ankle
as comely as the rest,
limbs formed by the gods
a sculptor’s deft touch
to hip and breast

and in that moment over coffee
I took notice of her lips;
lips like hers not yet in Vogue,
lush, like pillows on the cup
unlike Cybil Shepherd lips

And over coffee I decided
while watching lips caress the cup
I ‘d love to kiss those pillow lips
and blue green eyes

obscuring drops of other colors;
eyes reminding of Liz T;
Davis eyes and blushing crows
words as yet unwritten.

I offered her a coffee
and soon I kissed those pillow lips
for forty years I kissed them
until the time for her to go.

I’m sure her eyes got crows feet
though the blue green never changed
I’m sure her skin lost luster
her body rearranged

But in truth I never noticed
she’s forever seventeen
and I forever twenty
unto eternity.

.

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