Lost in Your Eyes

A hand twitches.
Breath catches in a windpipe.
A pulse jumps, and someone forgets to blink.

It was glances at first;
sneaky, deniable, I was just staring into space—
but then the stars aligned
and the glances did too.

Now they are caught in each other’s eyes
and neither looks away.
Neither wants to look away—
The mere thought feels traitorous.

One of them smiles, a quirk of the lip
that invites a shy wave from the other
which leads to a silent promise:
See you later?

And they do, always and again,
and the smiles endure and become
more soft and more confident,
with eye crinkles and laugh lines
and a hand reaching out to stroke hair
that was once fuller but still
just as beautiful, always beautiful on you.