I think I know you now.
You held my words.
You coached me walking,
waited on the landing
while I kissed a boy
and nursed another;
I remember now
because your shyness
mirrored mine. I was
aware of you when father
died and all the casseroles
lined up to mourn him.
I could not eat a bite
and you hung heavy where
I needed weight inside
this empty tomb.
You disappeared so gracefully
when words discovered me
and I reached out my pen
to write them down. You
let me love them privately
but you remembered me.
I’ve come to know
your presence in my need,
your patience in my joy.
So now I let you stroke my hair,
your fingers speak of snowfall
in these parts. We look through
eyes of memory fading softly
in their brilliance.
I remember when I beat at you,
screaming at your constancy.
“Go ‘way, I hate your wisdom!”
You dumped it on my doorstep
like zucchini in September.
I once tried to humble you with envy.
“Get your smiles off my veranda,
can’t you see I’m happy here,
oblivion my lover? He tears
my clothes, takes me for twenty,
you crouching in the bushes
whisp’ring sonnets through your rival’s snore,
his arm around my breath.”
I heaved him to the floorboards,
rearranged my buttons,
set my chin on dated palms,
and listened to you then as I do now.
Your voice is not half bad
and where did you find
these poems? The masters --
of course -- you would know them.
I cannot forget you though I try.
By all means, tell me what you know.
I’m not a child in fact
through you I’ve grown as old as Moses --
what?
How can you say you are not real?
You, my one consistency in life?
Listen, there is credence here,
I’ve birthed your children.
I know you’ll help to raise them,
as you have me
beyond my expectations.
Let sorrow keep its distance
as we conjugate the verb to be.
Don’t think I do not care.
I will fill you with my warmth,
bless you with my words,
charm you with my song.
Let the children play.
They’ll meet their daddy
in good time. Now,
you were saying about having
your way with me? Suddenly
I am all of twenty,
you are reckless handsome,
and neither of us knows a thing.
Susan Weber