strike that

too late

I pulled a book of Kay Ryan’s poems from Operaman’s bookcase last night – last night, the first time we’d gone out two nights in a row, which we both feared might be overkill, but was in fact just a treat – and flipped to a random page. Because I knew her name but didn’t know why. And there in front of me was a poem called Hope, which is a poem I tore out of a New Yorker at least five years ago and have always remembered, because it has one of the saddest and simplest phrases I have ever encountered. The sort of phrase that is so cruel in its precision that you cannot shake it, even years later, even if you mostly hope it’s wrong.

So I will not place that poem here. Instead you get this one, Intention, because I like it, and because I am not in the mood for cruelty today. In fact I would like to stay away from cruelty for some time.

Intention doesn’t sweeten.
It should be picked young
and eaten. Sometimes only hours
separate the cotyledon
from the wooden plant.
Then if you want to eat it,
you can’t.

posted by tortaluga @ 7:28 PM