The Agony of Middle-Age Spread
A lassie of middle age years
you know,
like thirty-five
assumed to be
a half-a life-time
of expectancy table
had a beau for near
half the lifetime she already spent
like eighteen years
and thought that was pretty damned good
to have lasted that long
and she was faithful to that beau
for all that time
that more than half the life she spent
loving that man
for eighteen long and lean hard years
and he took his lean and hungry looks
to another buffet table
with fresher meat
strange fruit in new and different colours
at the end of his imaginary rainbow
while she set his homeland table
of normal life expectancy with what so long
teased and pleased him
for eighteen years of her arduous lifetime
spent loving only him.
She thought: at his middle-aged spread,
he seeks the past of eighteen years
a younger lassie
who after spread of eighteen years of loving him
will be like me
and he my former beau will have spread
eighteen more of years not loving me
but someone with a quicker eye,
but not so faithful, true as I. . .
and he will try. . .
alas, again he'll try to find the me in her again
and neither will be there for him
when he might die
nor will I dare, nor she, nor will she dare
now for a generation spread
our open arms or legs or heart for him.
She thought: should I like him
look back on younger years
and do as he had done
to find a younger man for fun?
I in my mid-age spread am young enough
as he, my beau had been,
and teens of eighteen years or more
can tease and please me
just as HE had done
and they will be like him
until that buffet table
with fresh meat and strange mix-coloured fruit
aligns itself and I will be the faithful once again
to younger, newer beau
until his tender age
becomes that mid-age spread
and tells himself to go.
She speaks again: Or shall I seek that older one
who twice my age
already past that crisis waits for me
in day or night
no interest in that ghastly table filled with dates
no tempting fruits
no wandering eyes --
and do I dare assume
and dare I to presume
he will beware –
he will be where he says he is
just waiting for my aging self –
never more a raging self –
we both beyond that middle-age spread of years
that all too often brought me tears
of grief, of deep depression –
not the years of deep expression
of the hope for happiness
in my much later, older years.
Poetry by NotaDeadPoet
Read 517 times
Written on 2007-04-06 at 17:16
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