LOVE POEM TO MY HUSBAND OF THIRTY-ONE YEARS

 I watch you walk up our front path, 
the entire right side of your body, 
stiff and unbending, your leg, 
dragging on the ground, 
your arm not moving.
 
Six different times you ask me 
the date of our daughter's wedding, 
seem surprised each time, 
forget who called, though you can name 
obscure desert animals, 
and every detail of events 
that took place in 3 B.
C.
 
You complain now of pain 
in your muscles, of swimming at the Y 
where a 76 year old man tells you 
you swim too slowly.
 
I imagine a world in which 
you cannot move.

Most days, I force myself to look 
only into the past; 
remember you, singing 
and playing your guitar: "Black, 
black is the color of my true love's hair," 
you sang, and each time you came into a room 
how my love for you caught in my throat, 
how handsome you were, how strong 
and muscular, how the sun 
lit your blond hair.

Now I pretend not to notice 
the trouble you have buttoning 
your shirt, and yes, I am terrified 
and no, I cannot tell you.

The future is a murky lake.
 
I am afraid of the monsters 
who wait just below its surface.
 
Even in our mahogany bed, I am not safe.
 
Each day, I swim toward 
everything I didn't want to know.



Copyright © 1997 by Maria Mazziotti Gillan, all rights reserved.

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