Your thirty-seventh year comes at a strange juncture
though unprepared, I expected it to happen
without change as the years kept piling on.
Soon you’ll be forty but that doesn’t mean
you’d be loved any less than today. The waistline
will sag, a crease here and there around the neck.
Don’t fuss, I bit and chewed over this
long before you and accept unwelcomed changes
cannot alter what we are from deep within.
It’s commonplace to shower you with gifts
but then they’re worn until they fade, until next year
so, I decide to write you a poem instead.
Everything I’ve said these last four birthdays
after I broke the ice with a bar of Cadbury’s—
remains safe, always friend, and something more.