Looking through the notebook of poems 

from 1991, I came across this one...

I don't remember whom I had in mind

when I wrote it.

DICK AND JANE

“What about Dick and Jane?” he asked

and waited to hear what I knew

Do they love each other still, or what?”

And he sat back as a friend will do

and waited for answer to his question

knowing I’d say something

he could use for answer, anyway.

“Well, they still live in the same house,” I said,

If that"s what you mean,” and stopped.

“I saw him running yesterday, charging

hell bent for leather down the road

as if to stay ahead of something.

He seems healthy enough.

He wasn’t smiling

if you’re trying to know if he’s happy,

but then have you ever known anyone

to run and smile at the same time?”

“You know what I mean,” he said.

“Are they going to make it as a family?

The kids are almost grown now.

There’ll be just the two of them in another year.

Will there be enough left to keep them together

When the kids are gone?”

“Does he love her, do you think?” I asked.

“Does he miss her when she’s away

the way a man should long for the sight

of someone he loves?

Does he wish she would go away

and never complicate his life

with questions and demands and expectations?

It seems to me his eyes are empty

when he looks up after she has entered the room,

and shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Shouldn’t they seems empty when she leaves the room?”

“And what about her feelings for him?” he said.

“She expected to be sustained by his love into old age,

and there she is at forty-five

without prospects for companionship

if he doesn’t provide it for her.

I think she drinks a little.

Is it to forget for not to remember?

“You know she drinks more than a little,” I said.

“She has always liked to smoke and drink,

and he hates it… even beer he really doesn’t like.

And she nurses a drink for several minutes

then downs it and goes for another.

I think she drinks to forget

that he no longer seems to care

if she is lonely or happy or well or not.”

And he looked at me and said

with finality of a eulogist,

“The end has come for them.

The woman he married no longer lives

to greet him when he comes into the house

and the man he was has died, too;

So they are just two strangers living together

trying to figure out why.”