Some Things Don’t Change (You’ve Always Loved Me)

We learned how to tie our shoes together,

And you practiced on me and I on you.

Then we tied our kids shoes

Wearing rings we bought each other,

And now we tie the third generations’ while

Their legs swing from the kitchen counter.

It’s the hardest yet;

Arthritic fumblings trying to bow

Giggling laces.

Quite different from when they nearly covered

Our palms, and tongues would stick out

Of our mouths determined

That our shoes will stay tied this time,

After we found the right bends of friction.

You were patient then,

And you are now.

Still smiling with the same joy

You had before you lost your first tooth,

As if your whole life is ahead of you

Only you don’t even know what that means,

Because what child understands “whole life”?

I suspect we don’t either.

So you don’t worry or think,

You just brush our grandkids’ eyelids shut

So they’ll pretend to be asleep, and

We can find the right bends of friction

To know that their shoes will stay on.

Then, inevitably, when we’re out

At the zoo, any shoe that I tied

Will come undone, including my own.

And you’ll come and fix those up

For us, because you figured out

The way laces work when we were

Six, and I never quite did.

Not for want of trying, but I

Do remember thinking

That I’d never need to learn, cus

You’d always be there to put them

Into rabbit ears that won’t fall apart.

You never proved me wrong.

Thank you for that,

For making the mundane

Just as beautiful

As saying “I love you.”

That’s something you always do,

Making existence a breath of love when you say,

“You know, you should really learn to tie your own shoes. You’re 63.”

And then you smile, and fix me.