This one's called "Good Company."
The last one was a kind of naturalistic novel
in miniature.
This is a novel of manners in miniature.
"Good Company" takes place at a dinner party.
There are six characters, each of whom has a brief speech.
It's no longer than the last poem,
so the speeches are quite brief.
There's one wind bag in every group.
And I think it will be not difficult at all
to differentiate the voices of speakers
from the voice of the narrator, but lest we embarrass
each other, I'll make those little sort of wiggly things
in the air that people use these days to indicate
quotation marks.
And I think that's all we need to know about the poem,
except for it.
"Good Company."
If it was really all we needed to know about the poem
I could just go on to the next one at this stage.
"Good Company."
"At dinner we discussed marriage,
three men, three women, one couple among us, all six of us
wary.
I use it to frighten myself.
Our true subject is loneliness.
We've been divorced 1.5 times per heart.
The trick the last half of our lives is to get our work done.
The golfer we saw from the car this afternoon,
his angered face in bloom with blood,
lashed his strict ball for going where he'd hit it.
We watched him turn from a worst shot
yet, and give us a look like our own,
and on we dawdled through the afternoon toward dinner, here.
Here means the married couples house, of course.
The rest of us use so much time being alone
we don't entertain much.
The wind loops and subsides.
What a fine night to sleep.
Upstairs, a book falls off a shelf.
We'll be sitting here for ages hence,
the scent of lawns, good company, Sancerre,
fitful breezes suddenly earnest.
What sense does marriage make now?
Both people want jobs, the sad pleasures of travel,
and also want homes.
They don't want dark houses, or to live with cats.
They have lives waiting up for them at home.
Take me, I must read half an hour of Horace
before I can sleep.
The conversation lofts.
The last bottle of wine was probably too much,
but God we're happy here.
My husband stopped the papers, and flea bathed the dog
before he left.
One of us has a friend whose analyst
died in mid-session, non directive to the end.
[LAUGHTER]
Now we're drifting off to our nine lives and more,
melodramatic wind, bright moon, dishes to do,
a last little puddle of brandy or not.
And the cars amble home, the door, the stairs,
the sheets aglow with reticence and moonlight.
And the bed full to its blank brim with the violent poise
of dreams.