Old Lovers are Fat

Learning of lapsed lovers grown fat
on the seeds of addiction,
I congratulate myself on my prescience.
Ankles oppressing shoes, ship of thigh
bruising its mate, burdening skin.
Near-misses, half-divorces, nothing that
eats the ground glass of affliction;
the worst was no more than unpleasant.
The touching left no sign of crossing I
might mark (but they were thinner then).
 
I preside over my Empire of Needs
like Maslow with Mao’s Five-Year Plan.
Persephone swallowed and stayed in hell.
Eve had an apple and in the tasting
lost God, found man, a sour wager.
You sigh for spring, amid winter’s weeds.
If I plow this stone of a decade, can
purchase throttle barricade, quell
the knowledge that we are wasting
and the cosmos a blighted stranger?
 
You sigh, check the calendar for spring.
I check for reflex, chart the course,
the broken geometry of your moods,
read the bulletins of my divorces,
wondering how bloated they’ve grown.
Winter, here, is nothing more than a sting
in my bones—nary more.  Not remorse.
Like that girl in Hades, I held on to the goods.
I congratulate myself on my choices.
Would Persephone eat a stone? 

Pamela Sumners


If you have any thoughts on this poem, Pamela Sumners  would be pleased to hear them.