Opa! To The Evermore of The Great Somewhere So. Now we are old. I see you from a distance in the produce aisle checking the blackness of the grapes the softness of the pears and I think Oh! that's my old hat man as you ramble off with the cart searching for fresh kale. Now we are ripe. I used to dream about you climbing over mountains without me at the bottom trying to get out the words wait up! But. You are on the other side before I can speak. Once. I saw you waving goodbye from the train's window me running beside the tracks trying to catch you. But. The dream that roots in me is one of disembodied love more grave than a slaughtering of horses in deep grief I come upon a cottage in the forest knowing you are dead But. There you are in the kitchen waiting raising a glass of wine in opa! to our reunion. I love you so much I am weeping on my morning pillow you snoring bawdily beside me. I would wake from the dead for you would stay with the brute truths of our bodies-- the gouty feet the thinning hairs these stiffening fingers, a bundle of sticks-- to forgo all the perfections of the divine. Yes. We are old now. But not older than dirt you say. No. Not older than dirt. But. The dust storms circle. If. You board the train without me wait on the platform where you arrive I will be on the next train coming.
Stephanie K. Merrill has poems recently published in The Rise Up Review, Sage Cigarettes Magazine, Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art, and elsewhere. She has work forthcoming in UCity Review and in Moist Poetry Journal. Stephanie K. Merrill is a Pushcart Prize nominee and a retired high school English teacher. She lives in Austin, Texas.
Amethyst Review 
Wow! “Set me as a seal upon thy heart, As a seal upon thine arm; For love is strong as death.” The Song of Songs 8:6. I love this.
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