Mortality:  The Murder Rate

by Joseph Reich

and so you spend days/nights/weekends/
trying to land this beautiful girl/you send her
love letters/roses/give her phone calls/work
the pubs and saloons and cafes/work
all her games and girlfriends/all her
seduction and baggage and rumors/
and finally land her and the chase is
over/the courting and dating/and now
work marriage/a honeymoon/and future/
she looks spectacular in a bathing suit
and gives you two beautiful children/yet
somehow/someway/you are still something
of a hustler/can't help it/hardwired/hard to get
it out of you/and spot some simple stranger
on her front lawn on a balmy sunday somewhere
between summer and autumn/giving all her junk
away/casual and contented/reading a paperback
novel by the late great american novelist saul bellow/
she lives across from a farm not interested in anyone.