From The Long Sad Party by Mark Strand

From The Long Sad Party
Mark Strand

Someone was saying
something about shadows covering the field, about
how things pass, how one sleeps towards morning
and the morning goes.

Someone was saying
how the wind dies down but comes back,
how shells are the coffins of wind
but the weather continues.

It was a long night
and someone said something about the moon shedding its white
on the cold field, that there was nothing ahead
but more of the same.

Someone mentioned
a city she had been in before the war, a room with two candles
against a wall, someone dancing, someone watching.
We begin to believe

the night would not end.
Someone was saying the music was over and no one had noticed.
Then someone said something about the planets, about the stars,
how small they were, how far away.

MARGINALIA

The mean reds on a Sunday. Yes, it doesn’t surprise me anymore. The blues are okay; I can handle those. But this — this is something I live with. Here: listen to this and tell me I’m not allowed to cry. I go through six days a week pretending I’m alright. But today is for me. This is what my sulking room would be for, in the future. This is the reason why I would tell you, when we would meet someday, that there are spaces in my house just for me. That there is a big probability you will find me lying on the floor with one song on repeat, and you just have to let me be. That maybe when my love for you finally overwhelms me and I have nothing more to give, your job is to wait it out, like one waits for the storms to pass, and then carry me to bed and patch me whole again.