Rummaging in the drawer

I came upon an old love poem of yours

the date on the page said you loved me then
as you do now, but I hadn’t read it before
had I done so, I wouldn’t have forgotten

you write them still, but now it’s a different ink

it flows freer, and has a quicker drying time
while the other was an uncertain thing
halting heartfelt words dressed up in garish rhyme

it was like coming upon a picture of your face

an old monochrome batch of tender childhood
pert innocence, perhaps touched with just a trace
of bluster, before it showed the colours of fortitude.

it made the morning flinch, suddenly poignant

as it placed your youth in my old hands thus
and showed that love, even when it is constant
changes into different forms of precious.