THIRTY-SIX YEARS
by Marianne McNamara
We eat in easy silence; homemade chicken soup
golden with egg noodles and crusty French bread.
Pale lamplight outlines his craggy face.
His iron-gray hair is cut military short.
Like a Mount Rushmore head,
his features are angular, almost stern.
He sees that I'm watching,
smiles at me with piercing sweetness,
takes my hand in his own.
Together we're a pair of old worn shoes,
comfortable and complete.
We clink our glasses of dark ruby-purple merlot and
drink to the past we've shared and the future to come.
I'm still beautiful, after all these years,
because he loves me.
recommend this
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 13
I really like how you've
worded this.
Thirty-Six Years shows a wonderfully mature relationship, time forged and comfortable, but where the elements that made it into what it is today, are wistfully far off, or inaccessible--two people who know they love each other but who only have the trappings of shared years before their eyes. As I read this, I sensed a need to reconnect with those elements so that the specificity of the past with its perceived light, shadow, and passion, can return dimension to the professed love. This poem is a lovely close-up portrait of two grand, successful, people--and an exquisite read.