This poem is taken from PN Review 234, Volume 43 Number 4, March - April 2017.
Four Poems
Scream
It made no sense, but perfect sense. As lovers
they’d revelled – theatre, concerts, galleries.
Now she screamed, ‘Get out of the car! Get out!’
She was order, control, controlling, fashionable,
dressing up for theatre. He was orderly
but out of order, careless, dressing down
in jeans and two-or-three-day clothes. Love’s magic
seventy and tragic thirty percent.
Now, as she drove the car –
out of nothing, really, but everything –
she disdaining his opinion of the play they’d seen,
he objected to her tone, her character.
She hit the brakes then, screaming,
ordered him out. He looked at where they were:
down by the docks at midnight, lifeless streets,
...
It made no sense, but perfect sense. As lovers
they’d revelled – theatre, concerts, galleries.
Now she screamed, ‘Get out of the car! Get out!’
She was order, control, controlling, fashionable,
dressing up for theatre. He was orderly
but out of order, careless, dressing down
in jeans and two-or-three-day clothes. Love’s magic
seventy and tragic thirty percent.
Now, as she drove the car –
out of nothing, really, but everything –
she disdaining his opinion of the play they’d seen,
he objected to her tone, her character.
She hit the brakes then, screaming,
ordered him out. He looked at where they were:
down by the docks at midnight, lifeless streets,
...
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