Claudia Gary

Still Seventeen

Or so you wish—but if your deepest need

is everlasting youth, let’s crank the handle

still further back and watch your mother feed

you cake with one bright candle.

Instead, in this last chapter of your novel,

you ask if you and I might run away.

Away to where, and what would that unravel?

I used to hope someday

we two might listen to the night together.

Did you think that would mean you’d fall apart?

Well, yes, you will, unless you keep your tether

to reason, and your tender heart,

rather than drown yourself in a martini

and turn curmudgeon, fantasist, Houdini.

Claudia Gary  teaches workshops on Villanelle, Sonnet, Natural Meter, Persona Poems, Poetry vs. Trauma, etc., at The Writer’s Center (writer.org) and privately, currently via Zoom. Author of Humor Me (2006) and several chapbooks, most recently Genetic Revisionism, she is also a science writer, visual artist, and composer of tonal art songs and chamber music (see https://straightlabyrinth.info/conference.html). Her chapbooks are available via the email address at pw.org/content/claudia_gary.