The Love Song of Murphy, Age 22

When I was twenty I walked past
the woman I would marry—
--Gary Soto

She had a cat,
or loved cats,
I don't really know.
I can't remember.
All I know is her eyes were blue,
her legs were long,
and her lips tasted like peaches,
though I'd never seen her eat one.

We listened to the Beatles
and the Pixies,
and we would laugh and drink
and laugh some more
and drink some more,
sprawled like a writhing starfish
on her Murphy bed.
I had never seen one before:
a bed, then push,
and it was a wall.

One night we put the bed up
and had dinner—
spaghetti and day-after bread.
And, pouring wine into jelly jars
from a bottle we opened
with a hammer and screw,
I asked her to marry me.
There was no answer,
no talking at all,
just a kiss with peach lips
and a bed
that was stuck as a wall.

I never could get that bed back
from behind the wall
of the woman I would marry.