All winter our house was warm and deaf.
I could just see the few white flowers
outside the window. A true happiness occurred.
Don’t stand there now asking to be loved.
We could feel the thawing in the river,
low and guilty. I was still learning her particularity,
all the beautiful colors in her face, even as my arms
loosened dreamlike from around her.
It all happened as my premonition told me it would.
I loved her, but I’m not sure she loved me back.
I know that many times I misspent
her hope: it was flowering, and it was finite.
Then again, maybe I’ll want a young wife
in my old age. A bad man is the sort of man
who admires innocence. It’s a theme that breaks her heart,
but not the one that’s particularly unbearable.
I could touch her at any time. All the while
she was thinking of the work she wanted to do, despite
her absolute, unreasoning devotion to me. How life surprises you.
I had never been here before and yet I thought I understood it all.
What happens to old love, tell me if you know.