Who it Daddy? Who it Daddy? Joanie sang
when Benita rumbled up the aisle, a bull of a girl
leaning forward, falling from step to step. Who
it Daddy? Who it Daddy? And on the third day,
I saw, inside the larger swelling of Benita’s swell,
an ancient couple turn a corner in an ancient city
and, holding hands, rise into twilight. They never fall,
the old couples who rise elegantly into evening.
No one finds them lying in wheat fields or draped over oaks
like collapsed balloons. Romantics say they rise forever,
but I believe they ascend so slowly they starve
before they strangle in the thin air, and then dissolve
in heaven’s nothing. When I quit teaching,
I moved to that ancient city, and I ghosted there
the autobiography of a great man, a fascist sympathizer,
yes, but nothing more than that, he said. He loved willows,
willows of all kinds, and while I was articulating that love
I drank his purple wine and slept on his lubricious sheets.
Saying I, I, I, I made a self for him, noble but flawed, briefly
disoriented by boyish idealism-as I, I, I worked inside the green
curtain of the willows my words for him taught me to love.
After Teaching
Did you enjoy the the artible “After Teaching” from Andrew Hudgins on OZOFE.COM? Do you know anyone who could enjoy it as much as you do? If so, don't hesitate to share this post to them and your other beloved ones.
Leave a Reply