Old Man,
your time is up.
Get your greedy hand off my knee.
I'm not yours
yet.
Woo me
with heroic tales of
your victories,
show me your etchings,
tell me how delicate
are my ankles--
how delicious
my lips and fingertips.
Tell me again
what a friend you are
and how desperately
you want me.
I believe you. I do.
Someday
you will make our bed
and I
will lie in it.
Someday
when other embraces
have all grown cold,
perhaps I will even welcome
your impassioned touch.
Someday, Old Man.
Not yet.
(This, of course, is not about a dirty old man in any literal sense. This Old Man, metaphorically speaking, is death. The poem was written in celebration of passing
intact the five-year point in a battle with cancer.)
5 comments:
Congratulations on the 5 year anniversary!
Hi, Erin! Glad to see you!
This is a great poem! I love the voice and how the old man could be either a real old man or, as you explain, death. Great metaphor! Congrats on 5 years! My mom is a 19 year survivor!
Hey jilly. I remember when I was a thirty-something mom trying to write (sometimes in the bathtub with the door locked, sometimes in the car in the driveway with the windows rolled up, sometimes at the laundromat while the clothes were drying...). Now here I am a grandma trying to write. As your great grandma-in-law told you: time flies, and life comes atcha fast!
Come visit anytime!
Powerful! I love that this poem celbrates life while pushing back death.
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