- Non-Erotic Poetry
- The First to Go
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The first to go
was the strength in his hands,
a grip once strong enough
to raise an anvil
by its burnished point.
The cows would go next, he knew,
when December’s breech-birth calf
took the last of his back-strength.
“Get sheep,” they said,
“Make money while you sleep!”
But the taxes grew faster
than sheep ever could.
He lost the last of his hearing
the year his wife had to go,
although he says he can hear her
better now than he ever could.
He can still smell her warm flannel
and tast the sweetness of summer
in the last unopened jar of jelly.
The land is gone now, too,
except for this corner
where he works every day.
Not for cattle,
not for sheep,
not for hay.
He grows thousands of tulips
and gives them away.
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