The sonnet I just wrote (only the second in my life, the first about eating the contents of an ashtray, which was the basis for a song I performed with my band in the eighties) captures what it’s like when two people choke each other out with alternating arguments and silence. There’s no blame; if one has mood swings and flab, the other has unkempt hair and makes chewing noises.
It is no more autobiographical than any other poem I have written. That is: there’s a mix of true for me and true for you. Poems take liberties. They are life stories, but they do not concern themselves with facts. And they are only a single moment, not thirty years. We can tolerate five minutes of crack-of-dawn “Crazy on You” because of years of good times, good smells, and good tunes.
thirty-year itch
5 Comments
utterly fabulous. you truly are a mosaicist of words.
congrats on making it this far.
xo
Holy hell. What Jennifer said.
It's been twenty years for HBB and I and I just dreamed yesterday morning that he turned to me and said we'd totally lived right through our twenty year anniversary (of our first date) without either of us remembering it. The dream him was right.
Congratulations to you both. I love hearing the success stories like yours. Gives me big hope.
This is really pretty amazing. Mosaicist of words is it exactly — and you two are a mosaic, of course, and all the mess and beauty that entails.
And yes, it gives me hope for my own (imperfect, messy, hair and chewing-noises and moodiness filled) marriage.
I'm more like your husband (or at least like he was) money-wise — it simply doesn't usually occur to me to think about money. This is not always a good thing.
Your mother notes that you already have a couple of carats, though where you got them might matter.
I'd think a nice haircut would do the trick. Loved the sonnet, though. Especially the end.
The eyes will have to wait until you are on Medicare. If the upper lids sag enough to make you fail the vision test Med. pays. Uppers only. Lowers are about $3,500.
What pure poetry, Leslie. My gosh. Reminds me of Dylan's memoir Chronicles I've been reading. Just true, poetic, no b.s., impressionistic, specific. All at once.
Oh, and your sonnet is pretty good as well.