essay on crying in public

Sam Sax

i’m bent
over the sidewalk weeping
outside the public theatre
you stand above me
horse built from a father’s beer cans
you still have that other man’s mouth on you
i can taste it
with the back of my hands
it’s my fault
always is
i say do what you will
+ your will is done
so what i was born drunk + mean with my teeth knocked out
so what my first noise was crying + i’ve been going-strong ever since
the other man has a name
i hate it
he has a mouth + fixed-gear bike + hiv
+ you sat on his couch waiting for him
to say anything
that you’re pretty
or nice
or have nice sneakers
then you leapt in his body + lived there a while
maybe brushed your teeth or ate a spoiled piece of fruit
you came back to me
with your house keys out
the ones i had cut for you
said you couldn’t stop
thinking of me
how he tasted too sweet
cut flowers in chemical powder
candy souring in heat
how glad you are to live
here
where everything feels safe
basic real-estate
my house + bed
a thin sheet of latex
my chest a coffin to store your futures in
how bad does the news have to be before you get to shoot the messenger / how can we bury the hatchet / when it always ends up in my back
when you tell me
he emptied you
like an animal hide
i’m fine
until i’m inconsolable
in public + you’re offering vacant comfort
how bad he was in his body
how much it hurt
you
how you used protection
+ i can’t help but think
how terrible the name trojan is
in the story the horse breaks
inside the city + war-crazed men spill out
thirsty
for revenge
so what people are staring
so what we’re on our way to the theatre
to see a play where everyone dies
i don’t know why i’m crying either
maybe i can’t bare to look at you
covered in mouths
maybe it’s just the sidewalk pulling the salt out of my head
maybe i can’t see you now without also seeing you dead

In Those Years

Adrienne Rich

In those years, people will say, we lost track
of the meaning of we, of you
we found ourselves
reduced to I
and the whole thing became
silly, ironic, terrible:
we were trying to live a personal life
and yes, that was the only life
we could bear witness to

But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged
into our personal weather
They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove
along the shore, through the rags of fog
where we stood, saying I

Glow

Ron Padgett

When I wake up earlier than you and you
are turned to face me, face
on the pillow and hair spread around,
I take a chance and stare at you,
amazed in love and afraid
that you might open your eyes and have
the daylights scared out of you.
But maybe with the daylights gone
you’d see how much my chest and head
implode for you, their voices trapped
inside like unborn children fearing
they will never see the light of day.
The opening in the wall now dimly glows
its rainy blue and gray. I tie my shoes
and go downstairs to put the coffee on.

Message for the Disheartened

Patricia Fargnoli

When you are expecting nothing
a letter arrives
and someone decides for you.
Your arms fall to your sides,
your hands open.

You dress for the weather
in your gold moccasins
and prepare for long journeys
to distant countries.

The foxes who come out of the forests
stall before you but do not startle.
They are so beautiful,
full of spice and sugar.

Vines grow wildly around you
tangling your thoughts.
There are so many countries
you’ve never traveled to.

You’ve been keeping
to your own rooms
like a blanket stored
inside a closet

or an Egyptian mummy
or a room full of model ships.
In case you miss me,
keep moving through time

and I will arrive finally
in a black coat and top hat,
leaving my cane in the closet,
to open your inner pages

saying, after all, life
is sweet and not as dangerous
as you might think—though the thief
runs off with the child before help comes.

Park Bench

Albert Garcia

There should be a park bench.
We’ll sit next to each other,

watching a man throw a tennis ball
to his yellow lab, sending

and retrieving the dog
whose loyalty to task is clear

to both of them. I’ll say something
to start, something I’ve wanted

to say for years, words I’ve never before
been able to put together,

and you’ll hear them perfectly,
my words like a child’s wooden blocks

you can hold in your hands,
turning them for their modest gleam.

What you say comes as a breeze
that sinks in my skin,

not warm, not cool, just
what I needed to feel and hear,

like bath water, like tea. Then
we sit, and the dog

lopes out again to retrieve
his ball. The man waits

for what he knows is coming,
and the breeze, if there,

moves between us, back
and forth, silently.

Some Days

Philip Terman

Some days you have to turn off the news
and listen to the bird or truck
or the neighbor screaming out her life.
You have to close all the books and open
all the windows so that whatever swirls
inside can leave and whatever flutters
against the glass can enter. Some days
you have to unplug the phone and step
out to the porch and rock all afternoon
and allow the sun to tell you what to do.
The whole day has to lie ahead of you
like railroad tracks that drift off into gravel.
Some days you have to walk down the wooden
staircase through the evening fog to the river,
where the peach roses are closing,
sit on the grassy bank and wait for the two geese.

An Inventory of Moons

David Shumate

If you live to be very old, you may see twelve hundred full moons.
Some come in winter and you trudge out into the deep snow to
stand beneath their glow. Others come to you in the city and you
take an elevator up to the roof of the highest building and set out
a couple of folding chairs to watch it glide across the sky. Or the
moon finds you along a foreign shore and you paddle out in some
dingy and scoop its reflection from the waters and drink it down.
The moons of your old age are the most potent but seem few and
far between. They make their way into your marrow and teach it
how to hum. When your final moon arrives, it’s as if youth has
come back to you. Though instead of flaunting its yellow hat, now
it’s dressed in black.

Egrets

Mary Oliver

Where the path closed
down and over,
through the scumbled leaves,
fallen branches,
through the knotted catbrier,
I kept going. Finally
I could not
save my arms
from thorns; soon
the mosquitoes
smelled me, hot
and wounded, and came
wheeling and whining.
And that’s how I came
to the edge of the pond:
black and empty
except for a spindle
of bleached reeds
at the far shore
which, as I looked,
wrinkled suddenly
into three egrets —
a shower
of white fire!
Even half-asleep they had
such faith in the world
that had made them —
tilting through the water,
unruffled, sure,
by the laws
of their faith not logic,
they opened their wings
softly and stepped
over every dark thing.

Learn to Do Everything Lightly

Aldous Huxley, Island

“It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly, child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. I was so preposterously serious in those days… Lightly, lightly — it’s the best advice ever given to me…to throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly, my darling…“