Ringo Starr

You weren’t the one I loved. I must confess:

I didn’t have the depth yet. It was Paul, of course—

his droopy eyes and putty lips, 

babylike, unthreatening, despite the then-

brutal sexiness of the songs. When

I thought I’d grown up, I loved

John, genius rebel, loved

how dismissive he was, naked

with his thick-haired wife for weeks, 

legs and arms wrapped ‘round her, 

posed for Leibovitz like a suckling pig.

I loved how he’d make a scene, but when

I’d busted through my anger, thought I’d found

something like a third eye, it was George

the soulful one, I adored,

the one whose guitar gently wept… 

Oh, the many faces of a false god, fragments

of a false self, everything I craved:

Paul, pretty. John, smart. George, the Seeker.

Ovid said, The cause is hidden. The effect is visible…

So now, Ringo, you’re lookin’ better—

sticks as quick as a sylph’s flickering wings, invisible,

till we wake up to the impossible

source of it all, not you, of course, but you were closest—

off-beat mystery I barely noticed, inverse glamor,

southpaw of darkness in a right-hand world,

alive with a trick rhythm—you did your best 

with the kit you were given.

So now, when I hear your lacy pattern

bring “Come Together” together, 

those other sweet boys—

they’re waves,

but you— you’re the ocean under.

Originally published in Atlanta Review