Friday, May 22, 2009

Strangers

As we stand in celebration, you look so divine in the red dress.

I think of all the wonderful moments we had together.

The first thought comes to mind, you were sitting in the boxcar reading, as we were heading into the windy city…

I couldn’t help but look intently at your magnificence until the bellow of the train’s horn in the night’s frost startled you and our eyes became tangled.


It was at that instant we knew we would always be.

And now, is at this moment, celebrating 20 years of blissful marriage, I realize something dreadful.

I adore you and all that you are, or is it what I remember you as?

I don’t know you and you don’t know me, who we really are.

Do you even know my favorite color, or my favorite song? Come to think of it, I don’t know yours.

Many years we spent laughing, raising our children and yet we know nothing of who we are as individuals any longer.

Come closer and look into my eyes, I want to be your knight in shining armor, to ride in to rescue you on my white horse.

To be the man you once knew and to know the stunning woman standing in front of me once more.

Twenty years and now we are strangers, but I long to be strangers no more.

2 comments:

Becky H said...

I enjoyed reading this, mostly because I wonder if thats how it is after so many years of marriage and I see how easy it is for people to still be in love with the person they first met not realizing that people grow.

sallylynn said...

Tiffany ~

This poem spins out a really interesting narrative from this painting -- to create whole scenes and stories from a single image is great work! You've also got some really lovely moments here with the images and the way they're developed -- the "eyes becoming tangled" is a really intriguing and surreal moment, and the lines before that one access many of the reader's senses. Keep working with this language that incorporates sensory detail to carry the emotion and the story of the poem. For example, I'd love to see a few other scenes from the lives of this couple, something specific (like the moment on the train) to show us what they were like with their children, what they're like now, how they look at each other, what they notice about each other -- wrinkles? Lipstick on her teeth? Grass or oil stains on his shoes? These little details could allow the reader to get to know these folks and their relationship, and then you can allow those lines to carry the emotion without having to do those "expository" or explanatory lines with more abstract language.

Great work, Tiffany!