William Masonis | + Follow Poet |
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Do I See You Anymore

Lately, I failed to notice
My wife had worn
A new piece of jewelry I'd bought her.
She informed me, when I asked,
Quite matter-of-factly, that I hadn't noticed
Because we no longer look at each other anymore.
This disturbs me, implying as it does, that we're
Somehow beginning to unsee one another, like
We slowly unsee the dead, losing
Their faces in the slow snowfall of time, the turn
Of years
The drift of days.

Is she unseeing me too,
Am I growing a little more ghostly, day by day,
Sunrise to sunset?

Oh, I know the long appraising looks of youth
Are gone;
The burnished beauty of those flying days
Impossible to turn the inner eyes from.

Perhaps this is the proper way of things
Once more lies behind than ahead, 
Once all the wilder dreams are
Safely laid to bed.

Easier to bid farewell to ghosts
Than to their fragile, living hosts, 
For who can know what songs they sing?

But now I think, though I
Unsee you more with my outer eyes,
The more I see with the inner ones,
The visions of my memories, set beneath
Our younger Suns, 
Of you - Singing to the children, dancing 'round a fire,
Of you - laughing at my puns, 
Of you - beaming with desire.

There's a special one I keep
Fresh, though over 40 years ago:
I can see it in my sleep, can feel it
In the snow.
You - mocking the foolish preacher
Who'd come to the university 
To rail at us for learning;
You - a vision, spinning 'round, arms flung wide,
Hair like burning copper, laughing
In reply to him:
"Do I LOOK like I'm ASHAMED to be a woman?"

And I thinking, at the time,
How nothing could be more impossible.

That one I keep close;
A golden memory of that ghost.
And though i do indeed unsee
Small matters, like the jewelry,
I know I see more with those other eyes
And hope you do the same by me.

Copyright © William Masonis | Year Posted 2023

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