Quitting Poem by Michael Philips

Our calendars were rivers
Swollen with wedding cakes.
We slept through tunes like All Of Me
Or “All The Cheese, ” our drummer smirked.
But I knew I could never walk.
Mrs. Wing my junior high music teacher
Would appear before me as an apparition,
Breaking her baton on my stand,
Demanding to know what I was doing
Or even thinking of doing.
I couldn’t imagine
Telling her I can’t take it anymore

Until finally I did,
Because at some point you can’t face
One more bride who doesn’t care who you are -
It just has to be perfect,
And one day your fingers
Don’t want to be told what to do,
And one day you find the rest of the world
Is out by the pool drinking banana daiquiris
While you’re bent over the newfangled barbeque
Trying to figure out how to get the dam thing started

Now you ask if I regret it.
You want to know if I ever listen to the CD.
I tell you it is like a toy ship traveling sideways
After its shove onto the pond.
It’s Chinese food that leaves you hungry
But not for more Chinese food.
It’s an old lover’s answering machine greeting
That never changes but sometimes you call it anyway
Just to hear her voice.