Odd Fellow
for A.A.

unable to convert it into verse
if by some miracle I did
what difference would it make

miracle of life must be enough to marvel at

her ability to be caught in rain
and not get wet, in snow and not be cold

amazing her ability to remain unmoved
how moved I am

seems not to matter one way or another

how crazy I am
want what she gives and more
nothing short of an affair

she’d not hear of it, think of it, imagine it

elsewhere since we met
I just a sort of puppy, pet
to provide a saucer of milk

not a person in the way she is, in the same sense
executive, professional, successful

an artist, no body in her eyes
like someone without smell
though in love with her, what does it matter

like someone too fat, too old, too odd
to be considered at all
for romance or marriage

as if Joseph Merrick, Elephant Man,
chased by an English mob
savagely poked with sticks

they’d have killed him
had he not turned and screamed
I am not an animal, I am a human being

he too a poet, sensitive as I am
suffering as I am, wanting her to love me

it is what Hemingway’s son, Gregory, said:
“I just wanted him to love me!”

and repeated,
“Yeah, I just wanted him to love me!”

out of what mist will my wife come
into hard fact, into my arms

how can she miss feeling what I feel
I embrace her, I hold her as if holy

he treats me like a queen, she says
of a man she’s about to marry


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2009
6:04 p.m. 12.08.09