{"id":489,"date":"2015-06-09T21:58:52","date_gmt":"2015-06-10T01:58:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/?p=489"},"modified":"2026-10-13T08:48:32","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T12:48:32","slug":"looking-back-in-my-eighty-first-year-maxine-kumin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/?p=489","title":{"rendered":"Looking Back in My Eighty-first Year &#8211; Maxine Kumin"},"content":{"rendered":"<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-489-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/audio\/looking-back.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/audio\/looking-back.mp3\">https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/audio\/looking-back.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p><em style=\"line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/poemsoutloud.net\/audio\/archive\/maxine_kumin_reads_looking_back\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">text and audio from Poems Out Loud<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>How did we get to be old ladies\u2014<\/em><br \/>\n<em> my grandmother\u2019s job\u2014when we<\/em><br \/>\n<em> were the long-legged girls?<\/em><br \/>\n<em> \u2014HILMA WOLITZER<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Instead of marrying the day after graduation,<br \/>\nin spite of freezing on my father\u2019s arm as<br \/>\nhere comes the bride struck up,<br \/>\nsaying, I\u2019m not sure I want to do this,<\/p>\n<p>I should have taken that fellowship<br \/>\nto the University of Grenoble to examine<br \/>\nthe original manuscript<br \/>\nof Stendhal\u2019s unfinished Lucien Leuwen<\/p>\n<p>I, who had never been west of the Mississippi,<br \/>\nshould have crossed the ocean<br \/>\nin third class on the Cunard White Star,<br \/>\nthe war just over, the Second World War<\/p>\n<p>when Kilroy was here, that innocent graffito,<br \/>\ntwo eyes and a nose draped over<br \/>\na fence line. How could I go?<br \/>\nPassion had locked us together.<\/p>\n<p>Sixty years my lover,<br \/>\nhe says he would have waited.<br \/>\nHe says he would have sat<br \/>\nwhere the steamship docked<\/p>\n<p>till the last of the pursers<br \/>\ndecamped, and I rushed back<br \/>\nlittering the runway with carbon paper\u2026<br \/>\nWhy didn\u2019t I go? It was fated.<\/p>\n<p>Marriage dizzied us. Hand over hand,<br \/>\nflesh against flesh for the final haul,<br \/>\nwe tugged our lifeline through limestone and sand,<br \/>\nlover and long-legged girl.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>text and audio from Poems Out Loud How did we get to be old ladies\u2014 my grandmother\u2019s job\u2014when we were the long-legged girls? \u2014HILMA WOLITZER Instead of marrying the day after graduation, in spite of freezing on my father\u2019s arm as here comes the bride struck up, saying, I\u2019m not sure I want to do [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[103],"class_list":["post-489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio","tag-maxine-kumin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=489"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":535,"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489\/revisions\/535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poem.oftheweek.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}