|
<< Back to the main Stories/poems page
If things had worked out the way I'd planned
you'd remember my face,
or the sound of my voice as I read from Joyce,
or the turn of my head as I tread the boards
or graced the screen in your living room.
If things had worked out.
If things had worked out the way I'd planned
I'd have taught your daughter
or son to enjoy the works of Chaucer
or poems by Keats, and Heaney, and Yeats.
I'd have shown them Hamlet and Paradise Lost,
If things had worked out.
I'd have married the guy,
If things had worked out the way I'd planned,
with eyes like sloes and a crooked smile,
who dallied awhile thinking I, like he,
was cool to be friends, no strings attached.
If things had worked out.
If things had worked out, I wouldn't have you
Not my home and garden,
Nor my lovely girl and boys, and their children
who keep me young
and fill me with joy.
Maybe it's better when things don't work out.
Joan O'Flynn 2008
|
