Love, like anything else,
can be funny. A tall,
handsome, guy; just picture it:
nice hands, perfectly normal,
and she was a complete weirdo—
there she is, walking really slow,
thin, angular, moody, self-absorbed,
contemplative to an extreme degree,
an odd-shaped head,
not interested in politics or poetry—
unlike the good-looking dude,
you cannot picture her. She wouldn’t believe
he loved her; but he did—for years after she went away.
Most would agree there was something comical about the match,
but he cried over her, in front of me, today.
Scarriet 
Vox Populi said,
January 6, 2023 at 7:31 pm
What a great poem! Thank you.
noochness said,
January 7, 2023 at 10:54 pm
The tall, handsome guy thought he could save the weird girl—he saw in her something she couldn’t (and most likely never would) see in herself. And his love continued “for years after she went away”…. I’m reminded of a quote from a character in the 1981 novel ‘Rabbit is Rich’ by John Updike: “You don’t stop caring, champ. You still care about that little girl whose underpants you saw in kindergarten. Once you care, you always care. That’s how stupid we are.”
thomasbrady said,
January 8, 2023 at 3:37 pm
Updike lived in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, one of the loveliest places on earth. I used to talk to a guy once in a while who I met in my local North Shore cafe—he looked like he could have been Updike’s son, but I never asked him.
noochness said,
January 10, 2023 at 4:38 pm
Quoth Wikipedia:
Updike married Mary Entwistle Pennington, an art student at Radcliffe College, in 1953, while he was still a student at Harvard. She accompanied him to Oxford, England, where she attended art school and where their first child, Elizabeth, was born in 1955. The couple had three more children together: writer David (born 1957), artist Michael (born 1959) and artist Miranda (born 1960).
thomasbrady said,
January 10, 2023 at 7:31 pm
Guess not. One can look up his sons. My acquaintance didn’t have a fat face. The resemblance was uncanny, however.
noochness said,
January 11, 2023 at 12:00 pm
Your acquaintance at the North Shore Cafe could have been David or Michael Updike…..