Some Things I Can Not Say

When she looks at me like I am the old car,
the one with paint oxidizing on its snout and roof
and with her dog's hair so deeply embedded
that no amount of vacuuming gets it all,
I want her to hand me sugar cubes
in the soft palm of her hand and to touch
behind my ears lightly, as if I might bolt.
I want her to brush the crumb caught in my beard
the way she did the first time I made her dinner.,
her hand familiar, gentle, a mother's touch
or a child's. When I feel like the back fence,
tilting and needing a fresh coat of stain on its dry boards
which have shrunk apart so much that the neighbors
can see through the gaps our raucous grandchildren
in our pool, I need her to notice and mention
how I have tended the citrus trees, the Valencia
and Satsumas, how round and green and perfect
the new fruit grows. I remind myself of the feeders
that call the birds to sing for her, to fill the dawn
with their bright happiness so she can wake beside me
and forget how old I am, how I sometimes reach out
to wall or dresser or chair back to steady myself.
When she says I do not listen to her, I want her
to recall the envoy carrying messages
to foreign kingdoms of daughter and son,
the practiced ambassador who navigated
both silences and odd customs and who knew
what not to hear or say. When I feel like a cub scout
on her doorstep with my catalog of Christmas wreaths,
my blue shirt untucked in back, my neckerchief askew,
my cowlick at attention, I want her to sit down
beside me and look, really look, at every wreath
and discuss the merits of each. I want her to straighten
my neckerchief and smooth my cowlick and see in me
the boy that I was and the man that I became.

Cecil Morris, retired after 37 years of teaching high-school English, now tries writing himself what he spent years teaching others to understand and (he hopes) enjoy. He has had poems published in The Ekphrastic Review, Evening Street Review, Hole in the Head Review, Midwest Quarterly, and other literary magazines.