There you were all dressed in pink,
lips too, painted just a shade darker
for show, shoes, the buckle kind my sister 
used to wear to a 50s high school dance, 
your caramel-colored hair swept back in a tail
like a prancing pony let loose in a 
wildflower meadow after a long winter.

Sky turned gray with its first rain
since June, but you shooed it away 
with a wave of your white-gloved hand,
on which landed a monarch butterfly,
resting before the next leg of its winter
journey to Mexico; no thunder and grey mist 
for you, as the sultry sun was released 
from behind the clouds, and a double rainbow 
dazzled your eyes, eyes that held my gaze 
and wouldn't let go, not then, 
not for the next 42 years.