Julia Alvarez

Are we all with acute loneliness,

chronic patients trying to recover

the will to love?

...Sometimes the love

of another wounded one acts like a salve

which soothes the dying self but cannot heal

our lives. And perhaps this is what it feels

like to be human, and we are all well?

I was driving down the mountain, the curves

were bad, I wasn't going slow, the day

was one of those that takes your breath away...

On hilltops, I made believe I'd take off

into the absolute, but as I swerved

again and again...

and as the sun's

autumnal, soporific light shone on...

something gave in me and I let go—

this driving need to make it all mean more.

In time, I turned the wheel back to the road.

It's UPS

with two parcels! ...

a handsome lad, guesses it's my birthday

and asks how old I am. He acts surprised

he's a decade younger. We linger at the door

one of us is not immortal anymore.

I say, Don't trust those men with better,

bigger versions of love if they refuse

the small, shabby sample they gave others

the tribute of believing it was true.

But my house, though protected

with charms, can't block the spell mortality

has cast... I turn thirty-three.

My friend Carol says aging evens out

the advantage of beautiful women

over plain ones. ...

Where are the girls who were beautiful?