Poetry

by Evelyn Rainey

Poetry?

I used to know you.

Didn’t we love each other once

When I was young?

You used to call me from my bed

And whisper sweet secrets

To me all night long.

You used to tease me with

Rhymes and rhythms and innuendo.

You used to make me sing

And sob and laugh and I

Languished in your embrace.

But you weren’t enough.

I abandoned you

For a 9 to 5 career

And a 24 – 7 marriage and

The terrible twos and

Savage sevens and the abysmal adolescents

Of offspring.

I never stopped loving you,

But I was too shallow

To hold the full of you.

And now

The career no longer enthralls.

The marriage was parted by death.

The child has become a man

And now

You call me again from bed.

I am groggy and awkward

But you are patient.

I won’t love you as flippantly as before

I had nothing with which

To deepen your words.

No flavor to spice your rhythm.

No passion to flaunt your rhymes.

The life I lived without you

Will now ripen the fruit of my love.