PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

I love you because you're kind, she said.

I love you because you're smart.

I love you not just for what you are

But for all the things you're not.

I cradled her on the couch

And admitted that I didn't have a plan.

She said, "That's okay.

At least you're a good man."

--I guess we are two givers

Always on the take?

--Better than two bank robbers

About to be jailed and made.

She had short, blonde hair

And blue, angelic eyes,

And a tattoo at the small of her back

That was Japanese for wise.

She worked as a waitress.

I hardly worked at all.

I was very tall

While she was petite and small.

It's mental illness and addiction, she said.

That's our penal system.

--We'd do well to give them special jobs.

--Yeah, before the prisons keep them.

She was always saying things like this.

She was a very thoughtful girl.

I was a mediocre boxer

And drummed in a band called, "Hurt."

We had two cats, Alex and Avery

And a five year old pit bull named Buck.

And a goldfish, and a computer,

And an old beat up red truck.

I had just come back form an endless war

Where I had taken shrapnel in my skull.

She had just enrolled in community college

Where she was studying bits and pieces of it all.

Her mother visited every Saturday.

She was a very cordial, charming lady.

Her ex had taken their son to South Carolina

With the words, "If you want him you'll have to pay me."

We lived in a flat in the short north of Columbus

Sandwiched between a painter and a cook.

And down the hall there lived a minister

Who always had a friendly look.

She liked to cook with spices,

Everything she made was hot.

I tempered my own vices for her

And laid off the whiskey shots.

She spent most of her time in our garden.

She was very fond of tulips.

And when we went for ice cream

She'd say, "Chocolate, that's the whip!"

We never fought.  We never yelled.

She got her way with gentle guilt.

She never complained about our poverty

Or cried over spilled milk.

Once we went swimming in the moonlight,

Skinny dipped in a pond.

She said, "I love you more than the moon."

I said, "Luna, lead me on."

I dove in and swam to her.

I kissed her on the neck.

There were thirteen freckles

On her tawny, angular head.

I was prepared to do anything.

We were well on the way to marriage

When one day she sat me down before dinner

And told me very average,

"I have cancer in my left breast

And it's well into the late stages.

There's nothing they can do for me.

How's steak?  I haven't had one in ages."

And when you slipped away in your sleep

I went out to the front yard

And picked every tulip I could find

And buried you in flowers, Mary Menard.