Apple Fritter and a Single Rose
After 30 years together,
Carol tells me late one evening
in the manner of a quiet wife
that I have yet to write a poem
about her, something she
will never understand in light
of all those other poems
she says I wrote
about those other women
before she drove north.
And so I tell her once again
I wrote those other poems
about no women I ever knew
the way I now know her
even if I saw them once or twice
for dinner, maybe,
and a little vodka
over lime and ice.
Near midnight, though,
she says again
in the manner of a quiet wife
it’s been thirty years
and still no poem.
When morning comes
I motor off to town to buy
a paper and a poem
for Carol
but find instead
undulating in a big glass case
an apple fritter,
tanned and glistening,
lying there just waiting.
So I buy the lovely fritter
and a single long-stem rose
orphaned near the register,
roaring red, and still
at full attention.
I bring them home but find
Carol still asleep
and so I put the fritter
on the breadboard
and the rose right next to it,
at the proper angle.
When she wakes I hope
the fritter and the rose
will buy me time until
somewhere in the attic
of my mind I find
a poem that says
more about us than
this apple fritter,
tanned and glistening,
lying there just waiting,
and a single long-stem rose,
roaring red, and still
at full attention.
Donal Mahoney
