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©1994 |
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they move as quick as flowing water their manners are rough and their spelling’s worse they laugh too loud, but it doesn’t matter they’re an unasked blessing and a blessed curse they throw stones at your window at two in the morning you say it’s too late and you won’t come down but they are full of the juice of persistence they know they can make you come around and even though you feel delirious you know you really can’t get serious not with those young men, that’s who I mean young men, so young and green are you shocked and surprised? are you scandalized? or are you, admit it, tantalized? they ask me what it was like in the sxties did I ever see The Beatles on LSD one minute they’re making me feel so young and the next as old as some redwood tree they’re big on rap and bands like Sonic Youth sounds just like noise to me if you want the truth oh God, did I really say that? I can’t believe I said that I used to listen to The Fugs, and Hendrix and Frank Zappa! save me from those young men young and strong young men can dance all night long are you shocked and surprised? are you scandalized? or are you, admit it, tantalized? oh what would my feminist sisters think if they knew I consorted with younger fellas would they suspect me of reverse exploitation while secretly feeling just a wee bit jealous I called an older male friend and I cry I say I’ve fallen for this wonderful guy but he’s just twenty-three and it’s such a drag the friend answers dryly, “don’t brag!” older men with young women never had a problem it’s this other way ’round that’s all so new I find myself doing pathetic arithmetic when I’m forty-nine, he’ll be thirty-two and when he’s forty-nine, I’ll be – oh God, forget it I’ll be ancient and grey, I’ll be out in the cold ’cause he can get wrinkles and he’ll be distinguished but when I get wrinkles – I’ll just be old but still and all perhaps I shouldn’t complain could be I’ll never taste such sweetness again with those young men they have no past young men think love can last no mistakes to forget they aren’t jaded yet young men they’ve got nothing to regret young men are big on the big questions why is there a universe? why are we here? guess I too was like that once oh but the answers never came clear so then I switched from why to how and lately how shares time with when as in – oh God, how am I going to pay the rent this month? somebody tell me when will I ever get lucky again? so often these young men think I’m cynical they can’t believe they’ll ever get that way but sometimes their dreams rub off on me if only for a day nature’s unfair he can have kids ’til he’s a hundred and one but with me if I don’t do it now well, of course it won’t get done so he’ll leave me some day for a younger woman he’ll have a family – a girl and two boys and I’ll be an old friend he can’t quite explain who drops round to visit with cookies and toys and I’ll probably have put on some weight I’ll need glasses for reading and he’ll be older too, maybe losing a little hair but when his wife leaves the room he’ll tease me and say “ah, I’m still younger than you, so there!” and what will he say when he looks in my eyes? will he remember his startled delight decades and centuries and eons ago when I laid him down so sweet and so slow and the stars fell around us on that August night maybe now, now that I know I’ll find it in my heart to forgive all those old December guys who marry sweet May things pretty young playthings Picasso, Trudeau Chaplin and Fred Astaire ’cause mostly it’s men loving younger women though you could say I’m trying to turn that around maybe love is just what you can get away with so maybe love could be whatever we dare oh young men that’s who I mean those young men but always over eighteen! oh young men those young men |
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