Mary Dean Lee

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2040

I’ll likely be expired by then,
                                                transformed, maybe

                                    into a will-o’-the-wisp
            floating in a marsh by the sea.

I wonder how I’ll go
                                    alone, or not—
                                                in a car,
             by drowning, freak accident

                        slowly rot
                                                from some common pox that preys on elderly Goth.
Or will I curl up like a cat
            purring at my mother’s feet   
                                    as she rocks beside some heavenly fire?

Maybe I’ll pass my last years with my daughter
            planting lupines in the valleys
                                                            and at the side of roads.

                        And then I will paint them.

I will take up square dancing,             easy steps coaxing me along
            for an allemande left, swing your partner,

                        old codger grabbing me by the waist
steadying my crumbling knees and flat feet.

As I commune with the moon,
            sail off in my hammock to become
a loon’s mate in the bay
                                                            Joe will hear me and understand.

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Mary Dean Lee                           

Mary Dean Lee’s poetry has appeared recently in Best Canadian Poetry 2021, Hamilton Arts & Letters, The Tishman Review, The Halcyone, The Write Launch, Event, Grain, and Montréal Serai. She grew up in Milledgeville, Georgia, studied theatre and literature at Duke University and Eckerd College, and received her PhD in organizational behavior at Yale. She lives in Montreal, Canada.