by Bruce Lader
Things in Her Life He Would Love to Be
He cannot be a bluebird at the suet
arousing her vernal exclamations.
He doesn’t have the soft firmness
of pillows she sewed from old sweaters,
cannot be a cat she dandles for hours
on the sofa, brushes into light.
He’d happily become one of her hobbies,
a garden she serves the moment
she comes home. In a heartbeat, he would
take the place of the beaded necklaces
and pearl earrings, prepare a bath
perfumed with rosemary, be the high resolution
image mesmerizing her. How he’d purr
if she would rub his neck, shoulders,
gently as a Mozart andante
limn the landscape of his face,
he’d be so proud to satisfy all her excesses,
provide a mountain of cheese crackers,
goblets of Irish Cream, a sea of herring fillets.
He cannot free her from the work she hates,
can’t sing like the caresses of rain
serenading her to sleep, can’t even manage
her dream gazebo. If only he possessed
the passion to dance for the rest of their lives
like Ginger in unison with Fred.
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ABOUT THE POET ~
Bruce Lader is the former director of Bridges Tutoring, an organization educating multicultural students. Currently he brings writers' groups together in the Raleigh area, gives readings in the NC Triad and appears widely on YouTube, local TV, radio, podcasts and international magazine sites. Poetry Foundation, Poets & Writers, New York Quarterly, and many other literary resources archive his work. Lader’s poetry is characterized by a humanistic world vision, psychological insight, ironic humor, and speculative imagination. His themes are the need for freedom, love, and social justice. Describing Landscapes of Longing, Kathryn Stripling Byer commented: “…a powerful, unsparing, and yet tender book about the realities of self and culture that have assailed us since the beginning of human time.” Kelly Cherry wrote of Fugitive Hope: ... " [the book] deepens, broadens, and sweetens, as a pastoral symphony might…. an astonishing journey, beautiful and hopeful.” Discovering Mortality was a finalist for the 2006 Brockman-Campbell Book Award. In addition to winning the 2010 Left Coast Eisteddfod Poetry Competition, he has received a writer’s residency from the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation and numerous honoraria.
Last updated September 16, 2011