When You Leave for Someone Younger

When you leave for someone younger

Who will I get

To clean the stove?

To wash the sheets

To darn the socks

To make the checks

To set the rules

To modulate

Who will tell your tallest tales?
Bake your bread

Believe your stories

About what you did

During the day

Who will seal up the trash

And who

Will throw it away?

I’ll come home

And there will be notes

Notes and notes and notes

Explaining where you’ve gone

But where did you go

And with who

And for how long?

When you leave for someone younger

It won’t be sensitive to time

Work will be work

Vacations planned

Graduations

Birthdays, anniversaries

Holidays

That sort of thing

You’ll have made enough food

To last a year

But years are marks in a book

That contains just one page

Your goodbye

Will come in the form
Of an old James Taylor song

And I’ll tap my toe

And know that fleeting feet

Have danced you off

You’ll want things back

You never had

Mattresses sitting

On hardwood floors

With sheets on them

Nobody cares to wash

Stains on stovetops

From fatty foods

And mac and cheese

And bacon grease

Trash that never gets taken out

Stories that never need to be told

Notes on walls

To do this or that

With nothing ever getting done

You’ll find happiness

In misplaced time

While I’m looking for explanations

In the voices of our friends

Who advise I buy a calendar

And circle a day when I’ll be good again

When you leave for someone younger

We will split our memories

You’ll take the bad ones

I’ll hold the good ones

And you’ll move down a road

I can’t even see

I’ll imagine the things

Your new lover can do

That seem so much more

Enticing to you

Trapeze work

Sculpting

Sexual prowess

Beyond my capability

Consideration

Poetry

Listening

Singing

Sincerity

All these years

I thought love

Was supply and demand

Understand your demands

And provide the supplies

I never thought to ask you

If I was right

About what I thought you needed

Maybe because ultimately

We’re all afraid

That the answer to that

Will leave us empty

And empty-handed

Hearing something

And saying—

‘Well, that I do not have’

Did you know all this time

That I was the Wizard

With nothing in my bag

For you?

That you had what you needed all along

And you just needed the right person

To give it to?

And when did you know

That it wouldn’t be me?

That we missed each other

Before we met each other

That if there was ever love between us

It was passed off

Like a penny

Not held together

The way love should be

Like hands over a crevasse

One person falling

The other holding on

Like life depends on it

Like both their lives

Depend on it

When you leave for someone younger

I’ll grow older by myself

I’ll lose you in small pieces

Details turn to wrinkles

Colors fade, but so does hair

Memories and mothballs

Parlor tricks and miracles

The name of a poem

I used to recite…

At night, it will be colder

And I’ll hear the floorboards creak

Dinners will be quieter

If they’re even cooked at all

Summers shorter, winter longer

The music I hear

Will all seem wrong

I’ll be the one left

And never leaving

The one to feel bad for

The one to smile at

The one to check on

The one to comfort

The one who can’t seem

To be fixed

‘That’s what happens’

--They’ll say about me—

‘—When you’re left

For someone younger’

And they’ll lay in warmer beds

With assurances and promises

To keep them safe

Not knowing that outside

Young men and women

Circle their neighborhoods

Sensing ripples

And ready to wave

Ready to upend

Unhappy homes

And end the ups and downs

Of those inside

Ready to show another side of life

Where mattresses don’t belong on beds

And poetry comes pouring from gorgeous young lips

And nobody needs anything

From anyone

No demands

No supplies

No tall tales to tell

No notes and no lies

You’ll be warmer than you’ve ever been

With that younger body lying next to you

Not knowing what comes next

And for once

Not needing to