1
Yes, I have a wife and she is dead.
Today I know she is not returning.
As I find she has gone
the focus and the poems change.
She is and always will be here;
how different that is from having her—
in my bed, in my arms, holding hands, smiling at me,
nursing our babies, laughing at my jokes.
I know the fun we had by knowing what I lack:
the delight of the swamp, a limpkin calling,
watching the Perseid meteors, long kisses.
It took fifteen months and more to know she’ll not return.
2
I look at movies with a different eye,
wondering on the subtleties I never saw before,
in part, perhaps, because they do not exist
except within the finity of my imagination.
The Philadelphia Story
Hepburn is great, of course,
but the one I would have loved
is Hussey, beautiful in her no-nonsense way,
quick with an acid quip,
seething with a sexuality
only slightly camouflaged by her tailored suit.
Oh, Hepburn’s Tracy was fine for a fling,
but Hussey’s Liz was for a lifetime.
Yes, I have a wife, and for a lifetime.
She is still here,
but veiled as a cinema ghost,
and I cannot imagine wanting someone else.
