_Shannon_
11-21-2010, 05:48 PM
For P on His 46th Birthday
11/21/2010
It was Fitzgerald, remember?
It was that mad love in the moonlight
and you thought of transference;
the possibility that CrazyLove could be yours.
Not for you, but your writing.
I bought you pajama pants and cozy socks,
And an Art Kane photo print, and the new
Library of America Wallace Stevens with its
smooth white pages and its sewn binding.
I threw pennies at your window, because
I couldn’t find any pebbles in the dark.
and asked if I could come up
to wish you a happy birthday.
You invited me in.
That next year I don’t remember,
except that I know our first son
was now born.
And that you weren’t writing anymore
and neither was I.
And you didn’t want that CrazyLove anymore,
and I couldn’t give it anyway.
The moon meant nothing anymore.
I could have thrown an anvil at your window.
And you wouldn’t have let me in.
Every other birthday since,
another child has been added to our brood,
and another set of gifts has been
relegated to the closet to collect dust.
Or allowed to be destroyed by the kids.
Unread books piling in boxes or on shelves.
Each year one last one more attempt
to return us to that night I stood
under your window when the whole world
was ours for the taking.
I didn’t know you never wanted that
CrazyLove for you.
For your writing once, but never you.
So this year I give you back that night.
I accept that you feel completely unworthy of love,
That you don’t want pennies or pebbles
or anvils thrown at your window,
That what you want more than anything is to be left alone.
This year I offer you the recognition
that you feel like a complete failure,
and there is nothing I can do to make you feel otherwise,
Since there is some deep shame buried
inaccessibly within you, which kept you
locked up in that room in the first place.
Finally, I give you my acceptance of you
as you are and not how I hope
you might be. Someday. Maybe.
I give you the present and future
free from the past.
I give you no expectations.
I relinquish you from any responsibility for me.
I trust that if you want me in
that room with you,
warm against the autumn darkness,
you will call me to you.
And the surety that I will come moonlight
in hand to begin and begin again.
11/21/2010
It was Fitzgerald, remember?
It was that mad love in the moonlight
and you thought of transference;
the possibility that CrazyLove could be yours.
Not for you, but your writing.
I bought you pajama pants and cozy socks,
And an Art Kane photo print, and the new
Library of America Wallace Stevens with its
smooth white pages and its sewn binding.
I threw pennies at your window, because
I couldn’t find any pebbles in the dark.
and asked if I could come up
to wish you a happy birthday.
You invited me in.
That next year I don’t remember,
except that I know our first son
was now born.
And that you weren’t writing anymore
and neither was I.
And you didn’t want that CrazyLove anymore,
and I couldn’t give it anyway.
The moon meant nothing anymore.
I could have thrown an anvil at your window.
And you wouldn’t have let me in.
Every other birthday since,
another child has been added to our brood,
and another set of gifts has been
relegated to the closet to collect dust.
Or allowed to be destroyed by the kids.
Unread books piling in boxes or on shelves.
Each year one last one more attempt
to return us to that night I stood
under your window when the whole world
was ours for the taking.
I didn’t know you never wanted that
CrazyLove for you.
For your writing once, but never you.
So this year I give you back that night.
I accept that you feel completely unworthy of love,
That you don’t want pennies or pebbles
or anvils thrown at your window,
That what you want more than anything is to be left alone.
This year I offer you the recognition
that you feel like a complete failure,
and there is nothing I can do to make you feel otherwise,
Since there is some deep shame buried
inaccessibly within you, which kept you
locked up in that room in the first place.
Finally, I give you my acceptance of you
as you are and not how I hope
you might be. Someday. Maybe.
I give you the present and future
free from the past.
I give you no expectations.
I relinquish you from any responsibility for me.
I trust that if you want me in
that room with you,
warm against the autumn darkness,
you will call me to you.
And the surety that I will come moonlight
in hand to begin and begin again.