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birdofgreyPoems
Ophelia - now - might I see you with your unwashed grey sweater and torn blue jeans dirty brown hair much longer now - you will not smell like you did in June, patchouli oil, and stale cigarettes now - and you'll look at me with dull grey eyes and your smile so forced you ask how I'm doing mad gleam in my eye returned I see the river running, long and black, I see the flowers you never received from hateful men - you must hate me for leaving you behind I was obsessed with the highway and you with staying home - I will say hello and look away Ophelia - watch the flowers going downstream, fallen now, and brown, all brown wilted memories of a past you cannot hold forever - last time I saw you was December you were so... strange you seemed so cold with your new wanton obsessions - so unlike the shimmering of the summer I think, sometimes, you must have hated me then I don't care - I wear clean clothes now and shave every day. It's almost March; I can feel warm sunlight on my shoulders. I do not hate you - the ring you gave me is gone - I must have lost it somewhere and your necklace shattered on a cold tile floor, still, I think of you, sometimes, but the flowers are dead the flowers wilted so long ago Ophelia
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Dec 18, 2014
Dec 18, 2014 at 1:08 PM UTC
To Ophelia
Ophelia - now - might I see you with your unwashed grey sweater and torn blue jeans dirty brown hair much longer now - you will not smell like you did in June, patchouli oil, and stale cigarettes now - and you'll look at me with dull grey eyes and your smile so forced you ask how I'm doing mad gleam in my eye returned I see the river running, long and black, I see the flowers you never received from hateful men - you must hate me for leaving you behind I was obsessed with the highway and you with staying home - I will say hello and look away Ophelia - watch the flowers going downstream, fallen now, and brown, all brown wilted memories of a past you cannot hold forever - last time I saw you was December you were so... strange you seemed so cold with your new wanton obsessions - so unlike the shimmering of the summer I think, sometimes, you must have hated me then I don't care - I wear clean clothes now and shave every day. It's almost March; I can feel warm sunlight on my shoulders. I do not hate you - the ring you gave me is gone - I must have lost it somewhere and your necklace shattered on a cold tile floor, still, I think of you, sometimes, but the flowers are dead the flowers wilted so long ago Ophelia
~ Mike Uibelhoer, as published in the Back Porch Review, c. 1994
birdofgrey
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birdofgrey
Dec 18, 2014
Dec 18, 2014 at 1:08 PM UTC
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