Eighteen

Mock Orange
                  -- LOUISE GLÜCK

It is not the moon, I tell you.
It is these flowers
lighting the yard.

I hate them.
I hate them as I hate sex,
the man’s mouth
sealing my mouth, the man’s
paralyzing body—

and the cry that always escapes,
the low, humiliating
premise of union—

In my mind tonight
I hear the question and pursuing answer
fused in one sound
that mounts and mounts and then
is split into the old selves,
the tired antagonisms. Do you see?
We were made fools of.
And the scent of mock orange
drifts through the window.

How can I rest?
How can I be content
when there is still
that odor in the world?

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49601/mock-orange

Oh Louise

I agree. How can we 
rest? 

How can we be 
happy when 

always that 
question and

answer, that 
one terrible sound

mounts and
mounts (but 

never actually 
arrives, at least

into words)
in us, 

before fading 
into an un-

bearable
breaking, our 

tired old selves
returned to us

again,
stupid, 

singular,
washed up

in the sheets 
of that 

ridiculous 
dream, that 

fatal 
desire for 

connection?

How can we 
ever be 

still, or even

breathe 

when that 
salty promise lingers

in the air 
like 

smog?

Suggested soundtrack: Meatloaf, “Paradise by the Dashboard Light”