A Love Poem (Starts "When I Am Old")
by Derek Hugen, 7-1-04
When
I am old,
the world
will walk though the
broken stones of
our backyard,
like a lisping
giant
crackling through
all pretense
of free
will.
You
will be
a marketing ploy. I will
buy
you at half
price at the
super
market.
You will have
grown at
least four
feet by then. A caryatid
in marble. Flesh tones
with ivory. A steady face
with
pupil-less
eyes
That roll back
like
prices at Wal-mart
(Where
a baseball
mitt can cost only
seven dollars).
We
will track across
the yard
like hikers,
bellowing our
love status into
the green
grass we
tromp on, muddy
with our big galoshes,
oversized,
stuffed with
feet.
We
will make
small lakes with
plastic heels.
Rainwater will run downstream,
packing into rivulets
and rolling
down
our bodies like
massive balls of
mercury. We will run fast. We
will have
effigies of lightning
sticking
out
of our caps like feathers.
They will light up the
sky
at night
or
sometimes when the wind whelps
up into a
force
to be
reckoned with. Your lips
are solid mounds. They speak
proverbial
truth to rubies.
They sharpen wit.
When I am
old,
I will see you washing dishes in the window.
I will boldly smile,
pretend that I had something to do
with it. |