Twenty years from now,
where will we be?
Perhaps you and your husband
will have grown apart,
but I know you’ll stay together
for the kids.
Perhaps he’ll even let you
go out late some nights,
in a short black dress
and high-heeled shoes
when you’ve kissed them all
goodbye.
He’ll know what you get up to –
but he won’t care,
and neither will you.
And neither will I,
‘cause I won’t know.
I’ll be in some little
coastal house,
writing my poems
and ignoring the world.
But I’ll probably look you up in the end.
Will you even be alive?
Will I stagger to the top
of a hill, in the rain
and on reaching the summit,
stare in shock, at your grave?
Will I fall to my knees,
drenched to the skin,
and reflect that, in the end
I am the lucky one
to still be living?
Or maybe – just maybe,
in twenty years time
fate will have brought us back together.
Maybe I’ll wake up every morning,
and see your face.
Maybe I’ll walk into the kitchen,
and see you lounging
in your pyjamas,
with a big ‘good morning’ smile
that you’ve been saving.
Maybe we’ll get rid of our excess bread
with regular trips to the pond,
and we’ll laugh, as the ducks gather
round us, like children
to fight over what we have brought.
(I would sell my soul
for a chance to live
in heaven.)
I don’t live in the present,
I dream of the future instead
and the best thing about that
is that it isn’t set yet.
For now, it is
all fiction –
I am in control,
I can make anything happen.
But really, all I hope is that
two decades down the line,
your happiness will always be
a little more than mine.
Feb 19, 2011
Feb 19, 2011 at 3:27 PM UTC
Twenty years from now,
where will we be?
Perhaps you and your husband
will have grown apart,
but I know you’ll stay together
for the kids.
Perhaps he’ll even let you
go out late some nights,
in a short black dress
and high-heeled shoes
when you’ve kissed them all
goodbye.
He’ll know what you get up to –
but he won’t care,
and neither will you.
And neither will I,
‘cause I won’t know.
I’ll be in some little
coastal house,
writing my poems
and ignoring the world.
But I’ll probably look you up in the end.
Will you even be alive?
Will I stagger to the top
of a hill, in the rain
and on reaching the summit,
stare in shock, at your grave?
Will I fall to my knees,
drenched to the skin,
and reflect that, in the end
I am the lucky one
to still be living?
Or maybe – just maybe,
in twenty years time
fate will have brought us back together.
Maybe I’ll wake up every morning,
and see your face.
Maybe I’ll walk into the kitchen,
and see you lounging
in your pyjamas,
with a big ‘good morning’ smile
that you’ve been saving.
Maybe we’ll get rid of our excess bread
with regular trips to the pond,
and we’ll laugh, as the ducks gather
round us, like children
to fight over what we have brought.
(I would sell my soul
for a chance to live
in heaven.)
I don’t live in the present,
I dream of the future instead
and the best thing about that
is that it isn’t set yet.
For now, it is
all fiction –
I am in control,
I can make anything happen.
But really, all I hope is that
two decades down the line,
your happiness will always be
a little more than mine.
(c) 2008 Jamie McGarry. An old(ish) one, but with a genuinely plaintive note that keeps it in my 'good books.'
First published in 'What Do I Know Anyway?', www.valleypressuk.com/books/whatdoiknowanyway