Misery and Splendor

By Robert Hass

Summoned by conscious recollection, she

would be smiling, they might be in a kitchen talking,

before or after dinner. But they are in this other room,

the window has many small panes, and they are on a couch

embracing. He holds her as tightly

as he can, she buries herself in his body.

Morning, maybe it is evening, light

is flowing through the room. Outside,

the day is slowly succeeded by night,

succeeded by day. The process wobbles wildly

and accelerates: weeks, months, years. The light in the room

does not change, so it is plain what is happening.

They are trying to become one creature,

and something will not have it. They are tender

with each other, afraid

their brief, sharp cries will reconcile them to the moment

when they fall away again. So they rub against each other,

their mouths dry, then wet, then dry.

They feel themselves at the center of a powerful

and baffled will. They feel

they are an almost animal,

washed up on the shore of a world—

or huddled against the gate of a garden—

to which they can’t admit they can never be admitted.

Source: Human Wishes (HarperCollins Publishers Inc, 1989)

Robert Hass: Essential American Poets