This is-- next is a kind of, it's
sort of an advice on courtship poem,
but the politics gets mixed up in it.
It's called Letchworth State Park, which
is a state park near Buffalo.
Because she pauses a while in the middle
of the shaky footbridge to look down at the spume,
not listening as you mentioned the refreshment stand
and the options for the evening movie,
you needn't assume she's sorry she's come with you,
and would rather be pausing elsewhere with someone else.
Maybe it doesn't even mean she thinks of you as a stranger,
though it shouldn't surprise you if she does.
Put yourself in her place.
Think how thousands could have given
the speech you gave on the drive down,
about Honduras and El Salvador.
How we keep staining our flag by backing
the rich few against the poor many, thousands.
And how can she be sure that your words
betoken a love of justice?
Hours of lost sleep, and not spoken merely
to fill the ride up.
And how can you be sure?
It can't be reason you want from her.
A bridge more rickety than the bridge she's standing on,
swaying over a deeper gorge.
It can't be meager honesty.
Something your words can summon will
have to summon itself and take her by the hand
and lead her across, if she's to feel
what friends feel greeting on the dock after a long voyage.
Let me look at you, is all they say, you look good.
You look wonderful.