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"I don't like doing anything
without your Mother,"
I tell my daughter
who's feeling guilty
as a Salem witch trial judge
about not wanting to go out for dinner
and drinks with her old
sorority sisters leaving her husband
home alone watching the baby on
a Friday night.
My wife stares almost indignant
at me from across the room,
responding immediately
to be sure there are no misunderstandings,
"But I like going out
with my girlfriends."
I'm glad she's not pleased or flattered
that after all these years
I still like being with her so much.
I'm embarrassed when I realize,
when it is pointed out to me
so clearly that more than anything,
like having to wear a cast
on a skiing trip
I'm more of a burden
to her than anything else.
After poetry class,
I'm walking back to my car
when I notice a paper clip stuck
in the dirt between two sidewalk bricks.
I notice, too,
golden moonlight
shining down through
tangled branches and glistening
off cold metal benches in the park.
I hear three young women giggling,
smell their cigarette smoke
spreading in the pale dark air.
I find myself thinking again
of earlier today when,
more-or-less by accident,
I pressed against Pat's hard breast
as we stood in the kitchen
looking through Laura's college yearbook.
She glared at me, frowned,
and said, "Stop doing that."
I smile as I'm reminded
that poetry has the power
to sensitize us to
the world all around us
or not.
What if you belonged to another man,
were another man's wife
and I fell in love with you anyway,
I couldn't help myself and fell in love anyway
with your beauty and charm,
your elegance and grace,
but I couldn't have you
because you belonged to him,
what would I do then?
What could I do then?
Would I go crazy,
loving you from afar,
pining away, pacing a rut
through my living room rug,
the thoughts of you throbbing
like heavy trains through
my brain, chewing at my heart
like jackals gnawing a wildebeest carcass,
the vision of your ethereal femininity
like diaphanous bats haunting my daydreams
and my long dark nights too,
like a ghost in Hamlet or MacBeth or Richard III.
Or would I fold my tent,
abandon my quest for you,
go off quietly into that not-so-good night.
Upon instantaneous reflection
the answer is all too clear to me —
I would have to pursue you with every ounce
of my pale pathetic being,
move mountains, conquer the heavens,
how could I do otherwise?
We have only one life and one true love
and they must come together in one place
in time like a tornado touching down
on a clear flat plain
in the lightning and the rain.
