What Could It Be **** Poem by Herbert Nehrlich

Maybe some day
you could fill in:
my confidante.
She died last year
dear cousin Rose,
now reads my poems
from a better place.
She asked incessantly,
her ears were huge
and she had hazel eyes,
a pure romantic
she would dwell,
no, wallow in the tales
of love gone wild
or died a sudden death.

Was a Diana fan,
kept all the magazines
and framed her face,
each one a new coiffure,
she cried when Terri died
in Pennsylvania, she was snuffed,
she even liked the Pope,
he had a lovely smile
and Polish eyes, and hands
that showed an inner strength
and gentleness of heart,
she'd probe me, testing me
through subtle subterfuge
called Beaujolais, Vin Superieur,
though I held still and sealed
my lips right past the lengthy one
that she placed on them, always did,
her boobs were huge, a nephew said,
impertinent and from the other clan,
that she was driven through each day
by jet propulsion boobs, well now
I never did subscribe to calling names
as women are my favourite things,
and boobs are fine if worn by dames.

I've always left it at the size, so silly
to discuss and point with fingers
when the time could well be better spent.
I told her, had to,
about my greatest LOVE,
and how she'd found me (well it beats me still)
and that it had upended sanity and sense
due to the fire in its belly and its speed.

I did admit, it was a sermon really,
that I had seen all LOVE
as coming back
from living matter
as reflection,
to ones mind,
that I was wrong of course until the very day
when I fell almost to my knees,
I was, I saw
and deep inside my little ego
mouthed the words
that I'd been chosen,
surely logic proved a point.

I did not falter,
though I swayed,
a stalky weed
and felt my skin aglow
and readying to burn,
I took the hand
now offered (let me come with you)
and staggered
clumsily and drunken
to the turn.

Yet I was sober
when the angels led me down
into the waters
of a sea of salty tears,
then I immersed
into the soul beneath the gown
and heard the whispers
that a human rarely hears.

I thought of Shakespeare
and of Romeo and Juliet,
and wondered briefly
whether he had truly known
and from the day,
it was the thirteenth that we met
it has been precious
just to watch how it has grown.

I have been loathe
I told my confidante,
to speak
three little words
that men and women like to hear,
but now I yabber
and the words escape my beak,
it was a matter of me
finding the right ear.

I felt first LOVE way back in school,
she had black hair,
and was pedantic as a teacher,
to extremes
I loved her skin,
she wore short sleeves,
her arms were bare
and she was company
in very early dreams.

Today I know
why it makes sense
to be on earth,
it is the search perhaps,
to bring a flower home,
there is much beauty in
the act of giving birth
yet it is easy
to remain a common gnome.

You'd find me huddle,
so I told my confidante
was never one
to sweat together,
needed space,
those were the early days,
I was a dilettante
these days I breathe with her
and touch her lovely face.

As you can see, she sealed my lips
when first we kissed,
we have a LOVE
that must be nurtured and caressed
for some this LOVE
would be a spirit in the mist
but for the lucky ones
they know they have been blessed.