Poem

Kendall Merriam: My Wife Smells Like a Poem

Kendall Merriam
Mon, 08/08/2022 - 9:15pm
Kendall Merriam was born and raised in Rockland. He has a history degree from Gordon College and pursued graduate studies in military and maritime history at the University of Maine at Orono and Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Conn. He received grants to study historical research at Colonial Williamsburg and the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

    For Phyllis

    Here I am old, 80, unstable, faltering

    my wife encircles me with her strength

    pulls me up

    when she does I bury my nose in her pale, white neck

    I smell her scent, Poeme

    by Lancome of Paris

    she is fortunate, she was there a year

    with her Army officer father

    fresh croissants and wild strawberries

    to impress her father

    enough for her hand

    I enlisted

    and courted with transatlantic letters

    from Walson and Valley Forge

    you see I refused to give my signature away

    on a blank piece of paper

    beaten and drugged, I didn’t know what to think

    how to think

    now I can think

    sometimes a good poem comes out

    impresses a friend, impresses an editor

    gets heard, gets published

    she helps me, keeping going

    and every morning

    as she lifts me

    that scent, like a poem

    lifts my mind and makes me think

    that life is worth following

    an invisible perfume—Poe’me.

     

    Kendall Merriam, Home, 7/30/2022 10:50 a.m.

    Listening to Phyllis typing beside me.         

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