I want the life I had before
the children came and chased away my youth.
The children came and chased my youth
like a big, black mastiff from the back yard.
It had no teeth, this black mastiff in the back yard.
It rolled in the sun like a cloisonne egg in a dish
and loped off. On the shelf: a crystal egg in a dish,
your third anniversary gift, bears a crack.
Junior dropped it—I was just looking!—and it cracked
not like an egg, like a canyon in a tiny world.
Like a canyon that cuts a gash in any world,
I feel the lines cut deep at my eyes and mouth.
My sagging breasts you rarely hold to your mouth
were like quinces once. I know you remember—
the quinces, round and full, you remember?
They grew along the back fence at my father’s house.
Along the back fence at my father’s house
the two of us sneaked beneath the fruit laden trees.
The two of us sneaked beneath the yellow-hung trees
and touched, my innocence at your disposal—
You had more sense than I; your gentle refusal
kept my ardor from an impetuous flight.
It would come later, that impetuous flight,
after we fleeced my father of his prized possession.
Take the fleece, my father’s prized possession:
we slept upon it in the Cave of Nymphs.
We loved so hard in the Cave of Nymphs—
I want that life I had before.
