By Ben |

Written for a poetry class in 1997, this is a reflection on the proverb "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" and the joke attributed to Groucho Marx, "Absence makes the heart go yonder." It may go without saying that I was in a long-distance relationship at the time.

It isn't so much
                 that the heart grows fonder
	but all your sharp edges
                                 get tumbled smooth
		by miles and time.
		
It isn't so much
                 that the heart goes yonder
	but the gap you filled
                               is empty again
		and the rounded you
                                    doesn't fill it as well
			as a sharp-edged here and now.