Meditations on the Art of Distance, No. 4

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"Meditations on the Art of Distance, No

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"Meditations on the Art of Distance, No. 4"

You are the topic of great conversation, love:

   "Is she pretty?" asks my grandmother;

   "Is she nice?" questions my aunt.

      I only wink and tell them

         "I have fallen in love with a horrible monster,

         much-maligned.

            When we kiss, this fair prince

            shall gladly turn into a toad

            that he might live happily with her,

               forever, ever after..."

   My sister threatens to call you

      and introduce herself.

   My father rents a movie

      about bachelors and marriage.

   My uncle checks to see

      if I know your height, the colour of your eyes.

If you ever wonder

   why I suffer them for you,

   know this:

         It is not suffering.

         It never was.


[first published in New Bard Press, Drive, 2004]

˗ˏˋ・。☆.・゜✭・.
AUTHOR'S NOTES
✫・゜・。.・。. ✭

And back to love and home and family. We Bartels are known as trickster spirits, forever teasing and cajoling each other. My poor girlfriend quickly found herself a stranger in a strange world, adrift on jesting seas, tossed about by gales of laughter, drowned in innuendo. She put up with it, learned to love it, and—before long—was dishing it out as fast as she was getting it. That was the moment when I knew she'd someday deign to marry me.

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