by Adam Palumbo
"The poem is always married to someone.” —RenĂ© Char
I've been out of my mind twice in my life.
Sicilian uncles have no concept of this,
they are too strong in their weakmindedness.
The first time it happened I ignored it,
told myself to relish the brief, queasy
happiness, to hang on to the last now.
But happiness comes as a snapshot,
not in a quantifiable fashion
not mechanically, but as a vision,
something rich and strange. It is
turbid like a skittish hurricane
off the coast, biting its fingernails.
They say perfect love drives out fear,
but where can I find perfect love? I thought
we found it in that tangy magic realism
in Maryland. Your meek mien spoke to me
O so singly and I drove you home
after we traced the outline of the soul.
I only wanted one thing—to be happy.
But wanting that, I have wanted everything.
The heart is two-toned and like a child
you would not speak a single word to me.
And turbidity's gales fell upon gray shores,
churning happiness and washing it away.
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This is one of those poems that has stuck with me for years. It won the prize for best poem during my junior year at college (which came with a healthy check). I pieced it together from a couple of fragments over the course of two nights, and it has stayed virtually the same since then.
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This strikes me as both a young and an old poem. The repetition of wanted, wanting, wanted stays with me.