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Poem

Apple Fritter and a Single Rose
 

After 30 years together, 
Carol tells me late one evening 
in the manner of a quiet wife
that I have yet to write a poem 

about her, something she 
will never understand in light 
of all those other poems
she says I wrote 

about those other women
before she drove north.
And so I tell her once again
I wrote those other poems 

about no women I ever knew 
the way I now know her
even if  I saw them once or twice
for dinner, maybe, 

and a little vodka 
over lime and ice.
Near midnight, though,
she says again

in the manner of a quiet wife
it’s been thirty years 
and still no poem.
When morning comes

I motor off to town to buy 
a paper and a poem 
for Carol
but find instead

undulating in a big glass case
an apple fritter,
tanned and glistening, 
lying there just waiting.

So I buy the lovely fritter
and a single long-stem rose
orphaned near the register,
roaring red, and still  

at full attention.
I bring them home but find 
Carol still asleep
and so I put the fritter

on the breadboard 
and the rose right next to it, 
at the proper angle.
When she wakes I hope 

the fritter and the rose 
will buy me time until
somewhere in the attic 
of my mind I find

a poem that says 
more about us than
this apple fritter,
tanned and glistening,

lying there just waiting,
and a single long-stem rose,
roaring red, and still
at full attention.
 

Donal Mahoney

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