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This is my favorite poem

First Love

by Michael Waters

So what if you're living in Jersey

with a man who works for the phone company.

Your life must be miserable-

a name lost in a row of mailboxes

studding the loud, gravel drive,

your husband shaking the whole trailer

when he grunts onto you each night,

his workshirts souring in one corner.

So what if none of this is true

and your daughters grow lovely on lawn,

if your husband steps off the 5:14

asking, "Can we do nothing this evening?"

I imagine the fireplace, the flokati rug,

the cat sighing on her silk pillow.

So what if I live just across the river

and speak to the immigrant shopkeepers

or to no one, so what if I chain

my dog to a hydrant for hours, so what

so what if I buy a single porkchop for dinner.

So what if this life flows on, if I read

a passage in some Russian novella

and think of you, if I go to the table

to write this poem, but have nothing to say

except so what, so what, so what?

Michael Waters