why do I bother
thinking about you -- your voice,
your skin? what a fool.
in headlong flight from
my fears, perhaps? hiding in
your imagined arms?
or the brute body,
desperate to find a mate,
up against the clock?
---
knowing it's folly
still I long for the shelter
of your decency --
fearing to find out
even that decency is
just wishful thinking --
who knows what closer
acquaintance might uncover?
night thoughts are safer.
---
hell I'm too old for
mawkish longings for the love
of the unlikely.
but my stubborn hands
still want to draw out of you
that surprised laughter;
to comfort you or
is it to be comforted?
hopeless, either way.
---
o what pathetic
notions, and at my age too!
hush, my stupid heart.
hush, heart, don't dream of
the up-Island bus, my arm
slipped around your waist,
the weight of your head
warm on my shoulder, trusting;
it'll never be.
---
no, the sweet silly
jokes of lovers will never
tease my ears again.
I will not call you
pet names, you will not tell me
old sorrows, never,
I will not hold you;
I'm a grown-up, I can face
reality -- right?
---
hush, heart, don't picture
walking the long waterfront
hand in hand, or rain
on the deck and warmth
below, cuddling under
familiar blankets.
there are things you can
and things you cannot have, in
this life. live with it.
---
o god grant me this
that when I see you again
I'll be astonished:
I'll say What? How did
I build such dreams on nothing? --
find no resemblance
in your real face
in your real voice, to the
lover in my head.
---
my bedtime story
is about you, god help me;
and my waking too.
hush, heart, don't feel it,
the convincing illusion,
your warmth in my arms.
hush, heart, don't want it;
million-to-one chances don't
come true; you know this.
---
and yet my fingers
can almost feel your softness,
your hardness, your lips.
is it just hormones?
they do say older women
get a bit crazy,
as the caged girl beats
her wings against bars of age,
of loss, of reason.
---
hush heart, act normal.
consider the shame of it:
such feelings revealed,
unwelcome, awkward,
ridiculous? o lethal,
crushing, crippling,
to see in your eyes
pity, or worse: repulsion.
better say nothing.
---
I put words into
your mouth: what I want to hear.
such a liberty!
I feel I owe you
apologies, but how? it's
quite impossible --
to apologise
were to confess my madness.
that must not happen.
---
in my own defence:
at least I can not-tell-you
it is about love,
not about owning
or hurting or purchasing.
o most fantastic
illusion of all:
that you could love me: that I
could earn and keep love.
---
that I could be right
for someone, after being
so wrong -- not often,
but consistently.
that before I pass out of
this world's storybook,
just one love story
with me in it could turn out
right. yeah, in my dreams.
---
gross superstition,
to think that you must somehow
hear some faint echo
of all this feeling --
a thousand miles away and
in another life.
as if a slender
taut cord bound us, a tin can
telephone of souls.
---
it's one thing for me
to know how stupid I am;
unbearable though,
to imagine you
thinking it: "stupid woman."
o how that would burn,
through the skin to flesh
through the flesh to bone. russian
roulette is safer.
---
give me a year or
even six months, and maybe
it will pass like fog,
a trick of the light,
a mood, a half remembered
dream, lost by breakfast.
or so I can hope;
it's that or a lifetime of
wistful memory.
---
maybe imagined
lovers are sweeter. real ones
often disappoint.
so what is it you
imagine, I ask myself?
or is there no need?
there must be someone;
you're too sweet to spend your days
and nights all alone.
---
heartwreck doesn't kill,
that's just the problem: I'll live,
and life will go on.
o let me salvage
something from this disorder,
a plank to cling to:
let me be your friend.
that at least I might ask for
without utter shame.
---
no don't show me your
new house, if there's a friendly
face at the window,
someone to welcome
you and your guest. jealousy?
of course it's crazy,
this whole thing is mad --
so why not? I'm jealous. please
be living alone.
---
hush heart, don't hear it,
the mutual confession,
resolution, peace.
that doesn't happen
except in pretty stories
we tell ourselves. hush,
here in the real world
we behave ourselves and keep
danger at arms' length.
---
I shall live in what
your hand, eye, will created:
almost like your arms
her hull will hold me
safe, I trust, in strange places.
from your heart to mine.
here in the real world,
life's mostly disappointment.
be grateful for scraps.
-- GPL Apr 2005 D. A. Clarke