It bothers me
To know that my parents were having sex
Well into their 60s and my wife and I
Have lost our honeymoon period
Midway into the second year.
It is always a case, how a bald man – my dad
And my mom, who still looks good in her 70s
Can keep the kerosene burning
And not us, the generation Xs. Perhaps the pre-baby boomers
Knew something we didn’t. They knew
How to water the plant and to smell the fragrance
Till the final passage of wilt. Perhaps
They saw the pulp and the seed beneath
Knowing the seed was the magnet for pulp-chemistry
And peel was just a slender topping
To get chemicals moving up and down.
And I, just want to have what they possess
The traffic of my mom’s conversation
And the senseless nodding of my dad, knowing
When no one is looking, they make sounds
Of a universal pidgin, the grunts
And the songs, the decibels of symbiosis,
The aftermath in afterglow that makes the fur comb
And the heartbeat steady. Two
People in their golden years, well into
Their ruby anniversary, knowing that the lamp oil
Will never run out; lilac flames
That remember the hand that lit the fire
And the lips that gently blow
To keep her alive.
