Given that in this my first solo spring
for half a lifetime everyday I see
women I could break my heart for,
that by this Fool’s day I have been rebuffed
by four only is looked at obliquely
cause for celebration, but full face not.
Here starts the slow uphill slog after
the easy words. Hard not to weaken.
While this evening, this evening especially,
the department store throng swith heartache
I buy silver for my sibling and wonder
what’s apt for my anniversary: twenty-five
with a wheelchair. What’s the etiquette:
Plastic? Titanium? Carbon fibre? For I will
celebrate or lie down; and I cannot unaided.
Who will help me out of love?
In today’s sun I administered magnanimously;
tonight a questionnaire on body image. 0,
If know what I can do: love’s a piece of
cake, a smorgasbord, a fucking banquet. I will
anything almost: should you want to walk
holding hands or dance or love me from beneath,
only want long enough for me to try: others have. Only -
my body in your eyes: is that another thing entirely?
Once I counted conquests; now it is an achievement
to ask, when what sort of package am I
with my baggage of needs might bring despair
did I not believe in memory, dare to dream and
smiling sometimes when alone 1 think of you
foolishly think it a miracle to want at all.
Look at me. Stare. For I am cock
robin decorating my nest and I will sing.
But not like Cherubino. Though ‘ogni donna me fa palpitar’
1 do not end each evening with a pretty Barbarina:
I am definitely no Cherubino.
But I can dream, and in my imagination
we may be lovers already, lives intertwined.
So do not dwell on my limitations: we all have
those. No. Look me in the eyes and listen:
I am as hard as ever. I have learnt how to wait.