Late Saturday mornings
as I was watching cartoons,
the rotary telephone would ring.
We knew it had to be for her.
Even in sleep she knew:
the center of excitement
attracting calls from around the town.
At the top of the stairs
in her diaphanous nightgown
she would yawn before descending,
wipe the night from her eyes.

Years scattered past.
No woodland nymph
ever danced to my door,
pleading for the satin bone.
But a girl selling ice cream
taught me the easy part,
the sweet, fast food of love—
a girl in the prime of her time.

How I resented the aloofness
of any Venus at the end of the bar
who looked in my direction, then away.
Now I can forgive her royal disdain—
knowing from a lifetime
of suffered longings how beauty,
like desire, flickers and fades.

Last night the goddess
at the heart of my dreams
smiled with her tender eyes,
her gleaming lips, waved cheerfully to me
like to a great uncle—or an old friend
of her late, beloved grandfather.

George H. Northrup has been President of the Fresh Meadows Poets in Queens, NY since 2006 and a Board member of the Society that selects the Nassau County Poet Laureate since 2009. In the last three years, his poetry has appeared in more than 30 journals and anthologies. Recent publications include Avocet, Bards Annual, First Literary Review–East, Form Quarterly, Freshet, Long Island Quarterly, The New York Times, and the Performance Poets Association Literary Review. His chapbook, You Might Fall In, was published in 2014 by Local Gems Press. George was President of the New York State Psychological Association in 2009, and served on the Council of Representatives that governs the American Psychological Association from 2012-2014.