"Boyfriend Blues at 55"

Click here to listen to Sharon Olds read this poem.


It's as if, with him, I was always hiding,
somehow, even while lying behind him, in the
bed in those long stretches of the night laid
out, full-length, sated, parallel
behind the opulent tumuli
of his body, I was always just slightly afraid.
Mostly I thought of dangers to him,
as he did, the way a free being
is dogged by the fondness of others. So I'd lie pretty
still, and attend the concert of his snoring, as
if I were hearing the edges of the solid
world torn by the liquid. All
along, I think now, somewhere deep
inside him, there was a pool where the small
flame of love was brought, and carried
low to the surface so it shone doubled, it
beat like a creature flying, and then
it was lowered in. And my task was to pretend
the doused fire could rise out again as if the
soaking surface were a flint—my task
was to witness the refusal of love
and to assist at it.

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