April 25, 2011: Three Rivers, Alpay Ulku
Three Rivers
Alpay Ulku
What are you doing now, Anne-Marie, on the night we would bring home good things to cook
and watch movies from the 1940’s, the work week finally at an end.
Who will light the stove for you now that I’m not there?
I imagine you in our city of bridges, where the mid-West flows into the East and South, singing.
What with the apple trees baring their branches, the light “like none other that I’ve seen before,
worn and soft,”
and your new coat that matches the color of your hair perfectly, so that you cross the lawn to
the Cathedral of Learning trailing footprints in the frost;
what with Mau-Mau Kitty, who leaves presents in our bed for you, their fur licked in one
direction and their heads neatly reattached, so they will be pleasing to the eye as well,
do you still look for me, for a moment, when you swing into our favorite cafe, in our
neighborhood named for its squirrels?
When I come home at last in the season of cherry blossoms in the rain, will you still love me?
You’ve started saving magazines again, bus passes, too, and receipts from the grocery store.
Colored paper clips. Coupons. Old sea shells, from the winter we lived on the Cape.
When Mr. Lobster visits my Jacuzzi, no one tries to talk me into setting him free in the harbor:
the days are long and silent:
I drop him in, and we watch each other through the steam.
I’m driving home from the airport without you. I feel sad in my stomach.
==
More like this:
The Day Flies Off Without Me, John Stammers
Trying to Have Something Left Over, Jack Gilbert
On this day in…
2010: Ode to Hangover, Dean Young
2009: We become new, Marge Piercy
2008: The Only Animal, Franz Wright
2007: Dream Song 385, John Berryman
2006: The Quiet World, Jeffrey McDaniel
2005: Man and Wife, Robert Lowell
