0371 Reading behind the lines
So if it makes you feel great,
OK, go ahead -
as long as you're making yourself more attractive
for me, not your next husband...
OK, look like Anne Robinson if you must;
yes, she is great seen full-face, I grant
but now she's got no profile
to match those wit-sharp comments
to a sideways glance...
and yes, it's blushingly well-known
than a man can't even recognise his own wife in a crowd
if she's had her hair done in the interim...
so who am I - except the one who loves you
like the supper we've had every week
since we were courting? ...
but let me just say this:
I who have loved you
in my quiet way
like a favourite book (now, where did I put it? ...)
love those fine lines, that time and - we - have etched;
we men, surprise, are something of a connoisseur of lines:
the lines that cross your forehead: there, because
you're just so silly about not being seen by other men
with spectacles on your nose -
as if that told strange men
a lie and not the truth...
if they were lines of worry, anxiety, failure -
they'd be my responsibility, not yours...
and then the lines around the mouth:
that's a national thing in part -
it's well known that American women
welcome you with open mouth;
(and teeth! ...pearls? more like spotlights...) but
Europeans greet you with a smile of eyes;
(and there are cruder analogies I'll leave unsaid) :
so look carefully, man,
those smile-lines - a little forced;
or natural?
accommodating show-biz whopping tooth-caps?
upward and sweet-natured? or that downward turn
that bespeaks a critical mind you might come home to every night?
then the lines under your eyes - none of my business, those:
that's a matter of heredity or, OK, cosmetic surgery...
please yourself, my darling;
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poem by Michael Shepherd
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