When I Am Old and All Alone

When I am old and all alone

I’ll pull your letter from a drawer

And see you gold and taut with youth,

Though sure you must be grey and poor.

 

I’ll pull your letter from a drawer,

And rake it like a desperate lover,

And laugh to read “my sweetest friend”—

And wonder if you still think of her.

 

And see you gold and taut with youth

With me beside you, slim and white;

Hot words between us, chasming,

Though I was bright, and you were bright.

 

Though sure you must be grey and poor,

By now forgotten and unknown,

I’ll pull your letter from a drawer

When I am old and all alone.

 

*I think I may have invented a new word. Just for clarification, “chasming” means to create a chasm, as in “Let’s get some dynamite and go chasming”; or to become full of chasms, as in “Then the giant hopped up and down and the earth started chasming.”