Be Honest

Listen to poem audio here.

The phone rang after 11 p.m.; past clearing dishes
I was naked under a throw, crocheting, obsessed with who was
trying to reach me from a noisy bar. The call was from L.A., hello?
Wanted to say a name. But no, he's dead,

dead yesterday, in a bathroom three time zones
away. Glassine envelope, head to lip of a pedestal sink. His face
in the obit is so various; aloof and wounded, deep-running-
water-still. Oh so easy on the eyes. The way he wore
a shirt, the only one of them who could be counted
on. The kind of man (calling him man a quiver, a sting)

to solve me. How to say burning? I was timbers, a house
on stilts. On Woods Hole's obfuscated wharf, a desperateness; be
honest. He said the Rosa rugosa near the ferry had fighting
leaves, a sudden toughness in its hips. I'll make lunch
(tomato soup, a sandwich) and leave it by the dock

because I could never be
an actor, waiting for my cue, while gorgeous stormcloud
morning shades do layer in like oil. This kind of hot,
a thunderstorm incipient. A solar wind.

PRINTE-MAILRECOMMEND...RSS

FacebookMySpace Mixx Digg Reddit del.icio.us Furl Ma.gnolia SphereStumbleUponCLOSE

SPONSORED CONTENT

• Always With the Complaining!
  Meet Ben Jonson and Robert Herrick, poetry's most artful kvetches.
  Robert Pinsky | Dec. 1, 2009
• The Slate Poetry Podcast
  Your favorite poets read their work to you.
  Dec. 1, 2009
• "Funeral"
  A weekly poem, read by the author.
  Rosanna Warren | Nov. 24, 2009
• Search for more Poems articles
• Subscribe to the Poems RSS feed
• View our complete Poems archive