They Romp with Wooly Canines
and spy whole lifetimes on the undersides of leaves.
Jazz intrudes, stank clogging that neat procession
of lush and flutter. His eyes, siphoned and dimming,
demand that he accept ardor as it is presented, with
its tear-splashed borders and stilted lists, romance
that is only on the agenda because hours do not stop.
Bless his sliver of soul. He’s nabbed a sizzling matron
who grays as we watch, a thick-ankled New England
whoop, muscled to suffer his stifling missionary weight.
Earth-smudged behind the wheel of her pickup,
she hums a tune that rhymes dots of dinner trapped
in his beard with twilight. Is it still a collision course
if you must lie down to rest? Bless her as she tries
on his name for size and plucks hairs from her chin.
Bless him as he barrels toward yet another wife
who will someday realize, idly, that her only purpose
in this dwindling novella of his days is to someday
lower his heralded bulk, with little fanfare, into a grave.
Copyright © 2013 by Patricia Smith. Used with permission of the author. This poem appeared in Poem-A-Day on April 30, 2013. Browse the Poem-A-Day archive.
"Ah. Written after noticing more than one city fella 'discovering' poetry and shedding all things urban to become a Grizzly Adams sort, suddenly prone to long-winded analyses of the seasons and earthy, sun-tinged women who drive shiny pickups, raise wolf-like dogs and bite their nails. They grow old and hopeless together. Love smells like talcum and strained sonnets. If only the 1960s would return. I may or may not know one or both of these people personally."
Patricia Smith
Patricia Smith
Patricia Smith is a poet, teacher, and performance artist. Her poetry collections include Incendiary Art and Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah, winner of the 2013 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize.