Did she think I was a bum,
About to hit her up for money?
Or maybe she worried I would try
And steal her boyfriend away,
(Though I'm thirty years her senior.)

Well, he was lookin at me and smilin.

But I watched fear shock her face into some cubist form
Of her former innocence.
Three hairs turned white on her young head,
And one year of her life she traded
For the luxury and habit of needless worry,
For I would have taken them only
Under my down as baby chicks
And protected both of them there.

How often has Love wanted to take us,
And we, unwilling, won't be led.

-jenn