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Will You, Won't You, Well?

Illustration by Matt Hutchinson

Darling will you still love me when
my hair is lank and stringy,
insecurity has made me clingy,
my flesh drips wrinkled from my bones
and gasps of passion become arthritic moans?
Will you, won't you, well?
Well can you picture it, surfacing for air
when wheezy lungs and mouldy flesh make sex too much to bear:
will you want me then? Will you?
Will whatever else we have fulfil you?
When years have passed, everything's been said
and the friends we've shared are dead?
Will you, won't you, well?

Well, will we be enough for each other,
friend and enemy, father and mother,
life entire, self complete, one within another?
Will you still love me then, when
my eyes are dull and you have to shout
before I understand what you are talking about?

And when I'm dead, flesh crumbled, all forgotten,
will you dig me up and love me rotten?
Will you, won't you, well?

1996