There you are.
Are you there?
Would you be you,
Without your hair?
Was younger you you
When older you are?
How far would you go
To go very far?
You’ll go on a sally,
And drive your own car,
And walk through the valleys
In shadows of stars,
And sneak through the alleys
Of backstreet bazaars,
Heave ho on a galley
Set for Zanzibar.
(If you meet Rand McNally
Please send my regards.)
And then when you’ve wizened your pearls,
And done your mermaiding,
Come back to your world,
My girl masquerading
As a woman, unfurl,
And I’ll be there, waiting.
We’ll compare all our scars,
From fighting in wars,
Deposing the Czars,
And settling scores,
But you’ll still be you,
And I’ll still be me,
And wherever we are
There we will be.
“Why?” she said finally, after her crying subsided, “Why did you
leave?”
“I…” he floundered, “It was an impossible situation. A perverse...
You were a twelve-year old girl. I was a twenty-seven year-old
ABYSSINIA
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