Maybe not the final draft, but enough for now.
I am in Love with Old Men
Not just the idea of old men,
but the men themselves,
stooped and faded, mottled skin
loose at the elbows like the sweater
I’ve never quite been able to throw away.
The shorter, the better.
You don’t have to tell me
they were taller once. I understand
that before they began to walk
with such care, they strode
like giants over the land.
I want to swim in their Summer
memories. Men who once knew
how to tie seamen’s knots, how to whittle.
They were engineers, and drew
the world the way they saw it,
and only gave up the pipe under duress.
They may use canes now,
but when they were cowlicked boys
with tadpoles and muck in paper cups
they once, on a dare, burned something
alive with a glass and the sun.
Whatever life has done to them,
I want to eat it up.
Each old man who waits on a bench
for the bus to come – does he know
how close he is to having me
stop for him instead?
There beats a heart, still.
I want to cut it out
give it back to him and say,
“Look, how beautiful.”
6/04-7/04 RBP
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