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Because by Linda Pastan

By T.

31 August 2011

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Because
Linda Pastan

Because the night you asked me,
the small scar of the quarter moon
had healed—the moon was whole again;
because life seemed so short;
because life stretched before me
like the darkened halls of nightmare;
because I knew exactly what I wanted;
because I knew exactly nothing;
because I shed my childhood with my clothes—
they both had years of wear left in them;
because your eyes were darker than my father’s;
because my father said I could do better;
because I wanted badly to say no;
because Stanley Kowalski shouted “Stella…;”
because you were a door I could slam shut;
because endings are written before beginnings;
because I knew that after twenty years
you’d bring the plants inside for winter
and make a jungle we’d sleep in naked;
because I had free will;
because everything is ordained;
I said yes.

MARGINALIA

Goodbye, August.

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SHARED WITH GRATITUDE

This poem appeared in This is from Carnival Evening by Linda Pastan by Linda Pastan, published by W.W. Norton & Company, 1998. (Available on: Amazon • Bookshop)

ABOUT LINDA PASTAN

Linda Pastan was born in the Bronx, New York, on May 27, 1932, to a Jewish family. She was raised in Armonk, in Westchester County. Pastan is the author of Almost an Elegy (W. W. Norton, 2022); Insomnia (W. W. Norton, 2015); Traveling Light (W. W. Norton, 2011); Queen of a Rainy Country (W. W. Norton, 2006); The Last Uncle (W. W. Norton, 2002); Carnival Evening: New and Selected Poems 1968–1998 (W. W. Norton, 1998), which was nominated for the National Book Award; An… (more)