A Poet Rehearses her Rejection of a Novelist’s proposal

My dear… friend
(keep it impersonal)
it would be quite impossible.
(Impossible? Never mind, carry on.)
I know what you want, what you meant
(Know? Presumptuous, but I do know.)
But it wouldn’t work.
I know you’re being practical:
thinking more of an alliance
(Arrangement? No, alliance.)
My status would give you roots
legitimise your cultivation as a gentlemen.
My money, a trellis to guide
your growth, free of the need for a job.
You’d say you’d offer protection,
stop love making a fool of me
(but it may already have done).
My poor health would bore you,
you’d find another lover
before I could finish a cigarette
(and I don’t love you).
I don’t love you.

Now to try again,
without my lover’s image
whispering words I want him to say
I can’t let myself imagine
this proposal is his.

My dear owlish friend,
I cannot marry you.

Emma Lee’s poetry collection, Yellow Torchlight and the Blue is available from Original Plus (UK).  She blogs at http://emmalee1.wordpress.com/.  Emma found herself hanging around with bands until she swapped beer-sticky floors for the comforts of cinemas.  She lives in Leicester