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For my boys and for Miranda
Contents
1 I Don’t Have a Pill for That
4 Minutes, Years
5 The City of Paris Has You in Mind Tonight
6 Late Summer
7 September
About the Author
Also by Deborah Landau
Acknowledgments
I DON’T HAVE A PILL FOR THAT
It scares me to watch
a woman hobble along
the sidewalk, hunched adagio
leaning on—
there’s so much fear
I could draw you a diagram
of the great reduction
all of us will soon
be way-back-when.
The wedding is over.
Summer is over.
Life please explain.
This book is nearly halfway read.
I don’t have a pill for that,
the doctor said.
THE WEDDING PARTY
*
Well look, the wedding guests are here again.
Why not just send a card?
Snapshot. Snapshot. Smile and kiss.
But this bride has such a red face!
Let her scramble past pardon en route to the loo.
Evacuate the taffeta dire and paunchy.
The groom is erect.
The groom downed three pints
and stole from the caterer.
He would never be no grown-up.
This part we’ll remember. Dull and easy.
Before the spawning and apathy.
Before the dementia nurse
and waiting for mama to die.
Silverware. Cloth napkins. Carafes. Gather round.
Sit pious and clench yourself.
What’s within should be held in.
Choke it down. Medicine for the long haul.
No more wildness is why
I chose no more wildness.
Now scurry ho, before someone else
goes down on the bride.
Isn’t that her in the distance, up the pole?
*
By pineapple, by pamplemousse,
we find ourselves
back at the table armed with forks
and particular ideas about what to drink.
Go on, order what you want.
Turn up the music, you.
Lucinda, you have a great voice.
You have a lovelygone face
and teeth. O gums! Pink and alkaline.
We live in the city with crowds of fallen.
Soon I am dead and soon you.
We’ll
