a hypothetical poem
July 5, 2009
i’ve been thinking about whether i could be a woman who “takes a lover,” someone who i knew would not be around for long, someone who, say, was moving away soon. could i have such a love affair (i feel very liz taylor just writing that!), and let go when it’s over? here’s a poem about this hypothetical situation.
A Metaphor for You
When I see your sloped shoulders, I remember why
I’m here. You worry about your bad
eyes: how would I hunt
if I were a caveman? Oh, when I see
the sadness you carry like a suitcase, I think
I could love you, and so I’ve made
an appointment to have my sharp
tongue filed into a softer ridge. As we
sat through my nephew’s baseball
tournament, I saw you
in all those little
boys with the scrunched
brows of old men as they hoped not
so much to win,
but to not be the one
who fucks it up for everyone else.
Can a team consist of two, or is that
just a duo? You know we don’t belong
to each other; we belong together, but
you’re, too soon, on an eastbound
train to a glittering and windy
city, so I might have to rethink
such logic. Here’s a fact: the electromagnetic
energy surrounding the heart is ten
times greater than that which
surrounds
the brain. This is a metaphor for you
to decipher. I’m just here,
now,
to write poems, to play your spine
until August ends.
___________
