Sixty Years After

Sixty Years After

by Derek Walcott

In my wheelchair in the Virgin lounge at Vieuxfort,

I saw, sitting in her own wheelchair, her beauty

hunched like a crumpled flower, the one whom I thought

as the fire of my young life would do her duty

to be golden and beautiful and young forever

even as I aged. She was treble-chinned, old, her devastating

smile was netted in wrinkles, but I felt the fever

briefly returning as we sat there, crippled, hating

time and the lie of general pleasantries.

Small waves still break against the small stone pier

where a boatman left me in the orange peace

of dusk, a half-century ago, maybe happier

being erect, she like a deer in her shyness, I stalking

an impossible consummation; those who knew us

knew we would never be together, at least, not walking.

Now the silent knives from the intercom went through us.

(From White Egrets, 2010)