The Gray Flannel Suits.

The Gray Flannel Suits.*


Oh! To grasp your flesh.
To embrace you so tightly into me.
To latch on with claws,
So that you may never be taken.

Oh! My family,
How change, the suitor,
Has taken my place in absence

Oh! Penelope, my loyal heart,
I love you more!
For every day the denials you gave to relationship,
For every night the tears you gave to loneliness!
Such is my love,
That has great roots
Deeper than our own divan.

Oh! But I must guise,
To be to my son unknown.
Until divine decree,
To reveal an end to such a secret.

Oh! Why I cannot whisper you this?
To you, I am but the unknown beggar,
Who, to confide in,
Is a secret never told,
With no remark given.
This horrid role that Neptune dealt.

Oh! I cannot be husband by your side!
Not until those high, commanding,
Gods deem it safe
For my loved to see me.
Legum servi sumus ut liberi esse possimus.**
All to feel a stranger in my own home.






* Gray flannel suits are a stylistic icon of the early 1950s.
** Latin for “We are slaves of the law in order that we may be able to be free”