Helen Remembers Woodrow as a Young Man

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

Woodrow in overalls in a colorized photo a few years before Helen met him.

She sees him standing on the wooden porch

On Cape Canaveral. He is skimmed and wan

Because of flu.  She feels a Cupid scorch

Across the innards of her heart.  Upon

That instant Helen knows—and doesn’t know.

She knows that she will have him, have this him

That she has always wanted, not as beau

Alone, though he is beautiful; no whim,

This thought behind the yearn of breasts.  More like

A sudden healing wound the flu has caused

By making maleness frail, more as a spike

That stabs her healingly—her heart fears paused.

  He doesn’t know that in her mistress mind

    That she will have him.  Love and he were blind.

© Phillip Whidden