He felt forever ripening in the distance,
A harvest just beyond the years he gave—
Not knowing he had buried his existence
In the dirt of hours he never thought to save.

He counted nows like coins within his palm—
The coffee rings she left on unread books,
Her humming, unaware it was a balm,
The crooked way she hung their coats on hooks.

But he was saving forevers for someday,
When what had pressed him finally came to rest,
When they could finally afford to stay
In bed past seven, gently dispossessed.

She pressed each now like flowers in a book:
His mispronouncing her mother’s name, twice,
The half-asleep, unguarded, helpless look—
A glance across the room that would suffice.

The envelope from oncology was white.
So ordinary. Just a little late.
She tucked it in her pocket out of sight
And made him dinner. Fed him. Then the wait.

He wept for all the forevers he had planned,
The trips still folded into maps unwalked,
The thousand times he’d dropped her offered hand
To finish what, exactly? He forgot.

She held him in the hospice’s rented chair,
And whispered, I got my forever—every bit.
Each ordinary morning you were there.
I held it as it passed. That’s all. That’s it.

He kissed the wrist where time had worn her thin,
And felt her pulse drift homeward with the tide.
The room grew still. Her breath drew slowly in—
She’d kept no count. She’d nothing left to hide.

He found her flowers pressed in unread books,
Each now she’d saved and saved and finally spent.
He’d wasted years perfecting how to look
Ahead. She’d worn each year out as it went.