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To His Coy Mistress (II)
after Marvell
Had we but world enough and time,
this coyness, ______, would be no crime.
We'd sit and talk and eat and flirt
and never even lift your skirt.
We'd wonder how it might have been
before the world invented sin,
and then we'd pause and make a list
of all the pleasures that we missed.
But I am nearly forty-two
and know the things that time can do
to would-be lovers prone to pause
at passion's hem for caution's cause.
I know the lure when what's surmised
seems safer than what's realized,
when hands stay still and eyes undress
and safety triumphs, more or less.
But Hopkins said it, right out loud:
to have and get before it cloud,
and I don't think it too unwise
to take our caution by surprise
and kiss the thing that's meant to kiss,
and love what's taken, more than missed.
These poems are taken from Michael Blumenthal's forthcoming collection, Dusty Angel, by permission of BOA Editions.
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©1999
Michael Blumenthal and Nerve.com
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