Not Yet

All my life you have driven me up on the rocks.
And see that wind off the bow
signaling another storm. Before I've sewn
the holes in the sails from the last. You'd think
I'd grow indifferent, like my friends in their middle years:
Oh, that, they say, and look out the window
at the woman pushing the baby in the stroller,
head down against the wind.
But I know the old man I'll end as:
chasing lightning up a hill, waving a coat hanger.
Old coyote. Howls that hang
in the air long after the bells have stopped.
But no. Not yet. And she comes up to me
with the cup, held so, in her sweet hand.

Copyright © 2003 Doug Anderson All rights reserved
from Connecticut Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission