It falls from behind the frontispiece,
still sealed in a yellowed envelope
whose faded ink inscription reads:
Happy Anniversary, George
Love, Dot
1963
Unable to imagine, much less emulate
an indifference which would allow
George to inter it there unopened,
I promptly apply the paper knife.
It turns out to be an old-fashioned
felt-veneer card, embossed in gold
and containing a sentimental rhyme
about “unexpressed affection.”
I feel a little like a Peeping Tom
but, judging from the estate sale
where the fusty book was exhumed
from beneath one of several mounds
of heaped hymeneal remains,
the children have inherited
George’s aversion to sentimentality
and Dot is in no position to complain.
