Friends
When you
know who
your
friends are, the
next question
is
where. You forget
how and
why. What
seems out
of place.
Sometimes,
though, how
does come
to mind.
You
remember
that
first time love
penetrated,
and you knew
this
was no mere
nod
you give
on the
elevator
to make
small talk
between floors,
then
get off, back
to
your same
safe self
looking
for the
next true
friend.
—Donnell
Hunter
29 December 2011
It wasn't on the elevator that autumn in 1967, donny. It was a casual question about birds and bird watching. Later came the chicken sandwich in your waste basket.
ReplyDeleteI see both you and Nita miss the left turn I took before getting on the elevator. I'm saying it's not like the nod you give to make small talk (give is not gave)that leads to nothing once you are off the elevator. All those lines after "knew this" are a metaphor for keeping most strangers at bay.
ReplyDeleteAfter an encounter like that you keep on looking (maybe even hoping) something genuine will come along.
Nita dislikes penetrated, but I knew I was risking her concern leaving it in.
It may be I too caught up with solving the pressure of my intentional form that the poem got into deeper ambiguity than I intended--maybe an eighth type of ambiguity where William Empson has only seven.
donny
Yes, missed again. Too focused on the floor plan of the old COB. As you thrice said, "you're not too bad at poetry. Decker is much, much better." And I assume he still is. Maybe the chicken sandwich led me astray though the thoughts of the bird gives my sensitive stomach another turn. I'll watch for verb tenses; Empson should come more easily but perhaps my own 7 types have become too personal. Now, back to that elevator. You know I am claustrophobic . . . .
ReplyDelete