A Love Poem by Jack Carney
Beautiful, Billy, nostalgic,
sentimental, my
kind of poetry I envy
your ability to encapsule
memories in a figurative coin which you
bear on your person dipping into your
pocket to retrieve as you choose.
I rely on photos in my mind’s eye and
on actual paper – a photo of my wife
in an aqua bathing suit which’
hugs every contour of her shapely
young body crowned by a flood of
blonde hair a flashing smile and luscious
red lips.
Which I have secreted away
my eyes only while I’m alive
reminiscent of when we were both young vital
exulting in the beauty of our bodies and their
strength canoeing for days on upcountry
lakes and rivers which frame the lower corner
of the secret photo always in my mind’s eye.
It all began to end, my wife is wont to say,
with Reagan, our and the country’s good health
and resilient spirit although I would date it from
a good twenty years earlier when so many
good men were murdered at home and
abroad and Ronnie proved the last straw
too many.
Forty years on we have seen and felt our bodies
steady decline no longer canoe but remain
caring and cantankerous with one another
and the world, burdened by a stream of losses,
not yet ready to tear up our memories
have welcomed into our home
Fifi and Seamus two rescued kittens.
We believe our love will endure
despite the many travails
we have suffered and
the many more to come.
To paraphrase Cornell West and others
we have relinquished our optimism but
remain prisoners of hope.