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After Disappointment by Mark Jarman

By T.

6 April 2012

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After Disappointment
Mark Jarman

To lie in your child’s bed when she is gone
Is calming as anything I know. To fall
Asleep, her books arranged above your head,
Is to admit that you have never been
So tired, so enchanted by the spell
Of your grown body. To feel small instead
Of blocking out the light, to feel alone,
Not knowing what you should or shouldn’t feel,
Is to find out, no matter what you’ve said
About the cramped escapes and obstacles
You plan and face and have to call the world,
That there remain these places, occupied
By children, yours if lucky, like the girl
Who finds you here and lies down by your side.

MARGINALIA

Dear M.,

Things are made and unmade. They make you go on a trip for thousands of miles, and they make you stay in a room all day, with regrets and what little else. I think what is important is that you ran out your door, and said, This is what I want. What I would give to stand at the doorstep of the one I love, pouring my heart out. But the ocean separating us is too wide, and I don’t have the courage. But you do. And someday it will not go unnoticed. I promise.

Yours,
T.

ABOUT MARK JARMAN

Mark Jarman was born in Mount Sterling, Kentucky, on June 5, 1952. He earned a BA from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1974 and an MFA from the University of Iowa in 1976. Jarman has published numerous collections of poetry, including Bone Fires: New and Selected Poems (Sarabande Books, 2011); Epistles (Sarabande Books, 2007); To the Green Man (Sarabande Books, 2004); Unholy Sonnets (Story Line Press, 2000); Questions for Ecclesiastes (Story Line Press, 1997), which… (more)