One is an ex-professor of biology
the other is a stranger to us

but in their Saturday slacks
and old shirts
their hair cropped like Gertrude's

we would know them anywhere

Already we are their younger counterparts
In twenty years we will be indistinguishable

though I will go on writing my poems
and you will take my picture
under a trellis maybe

or with bare feet propped on a patio table
pencil in mouth
musing on the passions
of middle-aged Sapphics

By then we'll know how durable
the cunt is, or love itself
for that matter

working the garden together on Saturdays
stopping to talk, hands to hips
or gesturing with a spade

familiar as Gertrude and Alice
as Miss Lowell and Mrs Russell
in their greenhouse

By then we'll know all there is to know
about dykes and gardens
strolling arm in arm, perhaps with cigars
through our own American Beauties