Struck

We literally gulped in the weather today. It was 75 and sunny. A perfect, perfect Sunday. We spent all day outside. Not a stitch has been knitted. We are tired.

I was struck, in a good way, by this poem I heard on "A Prairie Home Companion" this weekend. It's by Deborah Garrison and is from her book.

An Idle Thought

I'm never going to sleep
with Martin Amis
or anyone famous.
At twenty-one I scotched
my chance to be
one of the seductresses
of the century,
a vamp on the rise through the ranks
of literary Gods and military men,
who wouldn't stop at the President:
she'd take the Pentagon by storm
in halter dress and rhinestone extras,
letting fly the breasts that shatter
crystal -- then dump him, too,
and break his power-broker heart.

Such women are a breed apart.
I'm the type
who likes to cook -- no,
really likes it; does the bills;
buys towels and ties;
closes her eyes during kisses:
a true first wife.

The seductress when she's fifty
nobody misses, but a first wife
always knows she's first,
and the second (if he leaves me
when he's forty-five) won't forget me
either. The mention of my name,
the sight of our son -- his and mine --
will make her tense; despite
perfected bod, highlighted hair
and hip career, she'll always fear
that way back there
he loved me more
and better simply
for being first.

But ho:
the fantasy's unfair to him,
who picked me young and never tried
another. The only woman he's ever left
was his mother.

-Deborah Garrison