Sometimes writing tells you something about yourself. And slyly, at that. This particular poem has been over a year in the works, and when I sat down to finish it at this absurd hour, I thought back to the last piece that I prolonged unnecessarily. That work was called Summertime: A Lullabye, and it marked the resolution of problems left in the wake of unrequited love. This work began last winter as the result of the sudden loss of love, and when I realized the parallels, it seemed that Gershwin might be able to lend me a hand yet again. I pared down the original dozen-or-so stanzas into what’s printed below – it isn’t much, but the clarity that comes with time has allowed me to see that, perhaps, there wasn’t much that needed to be said.
Summertime: An Elegy
For the poetess, CAM
Then I would pour myself
into bed with a bottle of wine
embrace the dull coldness
of the mattress and huff your
lingering scent on
my black and white pillows.
One of these mornings, you’re going to rise up singing
Then you’ll spread your wings, and you’ll take to the sky
It was December when you left,
and it fit to roll out of bed at
3 PM on a Tuesday, cough up
blood and gunk in the shower,
make a corned beef sandwich,
drink a beer and smoke a
cigarette and wait for the
phone to ring, perhaps step
out into the snow, listen
through the open window.
But until that morning, there’s a’nothing can harm you
With your daddy and mammy standing by.
Even now—and I’m sure
for months upon months to come—
the loss is more than enough
to render me a mass, writhing
alone on the floor.
But it is worth remembering
all that we were, all that we were not,
and all that we would’ve been.
