| 18th September 2001, following shortly after 5th September 2001. |
Sep. 18th, 2008|04:53 pm |
Three-and-a-half poems I wrote in the couple of years after I lost Anne.
In the absence of one I would normally love
(far beyond the Pacific expanse),
When I dance with the nurses like hands in a glove
Then my heart doesn't join in the dance.
If I'm closing my eyes when they're holding me tight,
If I'm breathing the scent of their hair,
They imagine I'm dreaming of nursely delight,
That I'm hoping they'll come to my lair.
Well, how little they know, and how little they guess,
And how poor is their insight, and flawed,
For my eyelids, when closed, are to hide my distress,
And the curls that I want are abroad.
For there once was a time when we danced in my tent,
And the cheeks that he kissed were still dry,
And I thought that he knew just what hand-in-glove meant,
But he left without saying goodbye.
Sometimes I'll miss him: his curls, and his smile, and his hand on the back of my head.
Sometimes I'll kiss you, and know all the while that I'm kissing the new one instead.
Sometimes you'll thrill me and help me to deal, when I may never see him again.
Sometimes you'll kill me by making me feel that another man isn't the same.
Sometimes there's dreams that the nightmare will pass, that I'm back at my home on the bay.
Sometimes it seems that, with just one more glass, I can make all the pain go away.
Sometimes I'll go very close to the brink, and I'll fight like an unbroken colt.
Sometimes you'll know just to pour me a drink, and to tell me it isn't my fault.
You don't want to know how I feel about you: It ought to be kept to myself.
You've a wife back at home, and you ought to stay true, and I ought to stay on the shelf.
I lie here at night, and I thrill to your snores, and I counterpoint them with my curses;
I ought to resist what the army deplores. I think I'll just stick to the nurses.
In the absence of one I would normally love
(far beyond the Pacific expanse),
When I dance with the nurses like hands in a glove
Then my heart doesn't join in the dance. |
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