Men Talk

It was the winter I had to get away.

Though I didn't know it then,

I needed the kind of solace

you get at depressing moving

if they're good; all those others

just like you. In Orlando,

biding time, I watched peacocks

among people in a wooded preserve,

then drove further inland past cattle

to where my friend lived.

I was glad the peacocks made awful

sounds, and I was glad—

after we jogged his circular path

through the orange groves—

that our polite, complete sentences

broke down into talk

of his empty house, the woman who left,

and then my house far away.

I told him what staying meant, as if

I knew; the precipice in every room.

Friendship: someone leaning

to your side of the truth.

Next day was beautiful,

seventy-five degrees, and each of us

silent, back in control.

We walked into the countryside,

pointed away from ourselves

toward the landscape,

took possession of it for a while.

Kumquats were growing next to lemons

and white birds rode the backs of cows.

Though it wasn't, it seemed enough,

seemed we'd never have to speak again.

Between Angels

Between angels, on this earth

absurdly between angels,

I try to navigate

in the bluesy middle ground

of desire and withdrawal,

in the industrial air,

among the bittersweet

efforts of people to connect,

make sense, endure.

The angels out there,

what are they?

Old helpers, half-believed,

or dazzling better selves,

imagined,

that I turn away from

as if I preferred

all the ordinary, dispiriting

tasks at hand?

I shop in the cold

neon aisles

thinking of pleasure,

I kiss my paycheck

a mournful kiss goodbye

thinking of pleasure,

in the evening replenish

my drink, make a choice

to read or love or watch,

and increasingly I watch.

I do not mind living

like this. I cannot bear

living like this.

Oh, everything's true

at different times

in the capacious day,

just as I don't forget

and always forget

half the people in the world

are dispossessed.

Here chestnut oaks

and tenements

make their unequal claims.

Someone thinks of betrayal.

A child spills her milk;

I'm on my knees cleaning it up—

sponge, squeeze, I change nothing,

just move it around.

The inconsequential floor

is beginning to shine.

 

Stephen Dunn

---