In silence the heart raves.It utters words <br />Meaningless, that never had <br />A meaning.I was ten, skinny, red-headed, <br /> <br />Freckled.In a big black Buick, <br />Driven by a big grown boy, with a necktie, she sat <br />In front of the drugstore, sipping something <br /> <br />Through a straw. There is nothing like <br />Beauty. It stops your heart.It <br />Thickens your blood.It stops your breath.It <br /> <br />Makes you feel dirty.You need a hot bath. <br />I leaned against a telephone pole, and watched. <br />I thought I would die if she saw me. <br /> <br />How could I exist in the same world with that brightness? <br />Two years later she smiled at me.She <br />Named my name. I thought I would wake up dead. <br /> <br />Her grown brothers walked with the bent-knee <br />Swagger of horsemen.They were slick-faced. <br />Told jokes in the barbershop. Did no work. <br /> <br />Their father was what is called a drunkard. <br />Whatever he was he stayed on the third floor <br />Of the big white farmhouse under the maples for twenty-five years. <br /> <br />He never came down.They brought everything up to him. <br />I did not know what a mortgage was. <br />His wife was a good, Christian woman, and prayed. <br /> <br />When the daughter got married, the old man came down wearing <br />An old tail coat, the pleated shirt yellowing. <br />The sons propped him.I saw the wedding.There were <br /> <br />Engraved invitations, it was so fashionable.I thought <br />I would cry.I lay in bed that night <br />And wondered if she would cry when something was done to her. <br /> <br />The mortgage was foreclosed. That last word was whispered. <br />She never came back.The family <br />Sort of drifted off.Nobody wears shiny boots like that now. <br /> <br />But I know she is beautiful forever, and lives <br />In a beautiful house, far away. <br />She called my name once.I didn't even know she knew it.<br /><br />Robert Penn Warren<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/true-love-2/
