A Leaf Painting Hanging On The Wall Last Winter..... Poem by RIC BASTASA

about to become old
like my grandfather
i know how unbecoming
is it for me to write
a love poem,

you yourself do not
like it, for i may be
to daring into another
melodramatic sentimentality
which is too unlikely for
a man whose concern should
have been a place of
confinement, a site for
another solitude to think
over such an erroneous past.

yet here i am getting old
about a love which never
really realized itself-
an open line, an unfinished
business, a woman caught
open mouthed to a kiss
which should have been
planted on the lips years
ago,

you have kept her hanging
like a painted leaf on the
wall last winter.....