If I’d have married Anna
that earthquake summer in Savannah
because I felt I could understand her,
we, both transplanted Marylanders –
her from R-Town, I, the Manor
and both strangers-in-strange-landers.
and me, a one man want ad –
had I been a better man, I
maybe might have married Anna
In an earthquake. In Savannah.
I’d have been a man of Golden Islands
Square of eye, devoid of guile and
unassuming in my style,
injudicious in my silence.
The menace lurking in my myelin.
A southland wand’rin’ migrant,
a peripatetic mendicant
scrambling to stand on the shoulders of giants
had my heart only not bled so violent.
In the golden summer’s wildness, of the islands.
But choice’s fingers, sly and dextrous
unknotted passion once infectious.
As East Coast turned to West Coast,
sleepless nights and whore’s breakfasts
with a method actress and a snapperoo from Texas
for love, I clung ambitious –
not that I ever really found it
and as if I’d recognize it! Like I did with a boys heart
in a man’s carapace, in the theme from a summer place.
the theme that made that earthquake rumble reckless.
And earthquakes change the landscape,
the nexus will relocate until
opportunity makes strange bedmates
and gives you backaches, mandates, band-aids
truncating vital essence lest it escape,
we sit on shelfs and shafts tectonic
But love is quantum, sub-atomic, bereft of logic,
tragicomic – It’s chemical, it’s chronic, subversive, supersonic
And “if onlys” only skulk in the short corridors before dawn.
“if onlys” pre-owned by men who didn’t marry Anna.
tarnation and eudemonia 
I imagine all who read this hear with wish they, too, had married Anna.
No, she was a ramblin’ gal. She left Savannah to live in Spokane, then an island off the Wa. Coast. After a few points in between, now she lives in Rhode Island. But she was whip smart and funny as hell and had herself together in a most peculiar way. Of course, the biggest impediment to me marrying her was that she most adamantly refused to allow me when I asked.
I’m so glad you didn’t marry Anna or we’d never have this poem. Yup. You’re still my favorite poet living or dead, Seb.
Sticks. But, you know if I had of married Anna, I’d probably only he your favourite dead poet!
LOL!