COLLAPSING POEM

The woman stands on the front steps, sobbing.

The man stays just inside the house,

leaning against the doorjamb. It’s late, a wet

fog has left a sheer film over the windows

of cars along the street. The woman is drunk.

She begs the man, but he won’t let her in.

Say it matters what happened between them;

say you can’t judge whose fault this all is,

given the lack of context, given your own failures

with those you meant most to love.

Or maybe you don’t care about them yet.

Maybe you need some way

to put yourself in this scene, some minor detail

that will make them seem so real you try to enter

this page to keep them from doing

to each other what you’ve done to someone,

somewhere: think about that for a minute,

while she keeps crying, and he speaks

in a voice so measured and calm he might be

talking to a child frightened by something

perfectly usual: darkness, thunder,

the coldness of the human heart.

But she’s not listening, because now

she’s hitting him, beating her fists against the chest

she laid her head on so many nights.

And by now, if you’ve been moved, it’s because

you’re thinking with regret of the person

this poem set out to remind you of,

and what you want more than anything is what

the man in the poem wants: for her to shut up.

And if you could only drive down that street

and emerge from the fog, maybe you

could get her to stop, but I can’t do it.

All I can do is stand at that open door

making things worse. That’s my talent,

that’s why this poem won’t get finished unless

you drag me from it, away from that man;

for Christ’s sake, hurry, just pull up and keep

the motor running and take me wherever you’re going.