Fourty or forty

by Martha Landman

 The only way out of this hole is to go deeper into it.
 -- Julie Beveridge

No matter if you are fourty or forty
I will love you forever and four less
Don’t ask me why I procrastinate for
four times ten I read your promise

I cling to the bannister and drink porty
wine on the bathroom floor unable
to distract myself for forty four days
and almost forget that you love me

fortyfold — not randomly.  And you
want to spend the rest of your life on
one fourth of a quarter section of land
to plant and manure a handful of beans

From four to fourteen to forty I wish you
more than just a physical body to replicate
angelic beings important in themselves
The seed and the tree grow in four decades

We must remember yesterday the fourth
day of the fourth month of the forth year
without deviation (you get the drift). What
if I don’t get worthy images in photoshop?

Will you still love me when I’m size forty
on your fortieth or will I be the paralysed
number forty chapter forty verse forty in
the Quran between thirty nine and forty one

So whether you are fourty or forty the dogs
will fly on either side of the Atlantic under
a false name in sporty Anglo-Saxon colours
Heroing forth in fourty four poignant hours.