Loneliness of a Long Poem

As witty as she’s pretty, she’s who every lady

in a gentlewoman’s novel wants to be. Parsing out

the delicacies of her watchful sensibilities and luck,

without of course in any way broadcasting her advance,

she’s found she is the central presence with whom

every man must dance. She chooses confidants

and confidences with an almost playful sense

of mild unguarded ease – a touch of tease –

and yet a breath, though never taken heavily,

that something more than nothing may well be

at stake. She is the cake and they are eating it

and she is eating it: there always will be more. Ears

she favors with her secrets are both known to be

deserving, and deserving. Perhaps this sounds

self-serving: as if her main pursuit resides in publicly

performing her appeal: ministering only to the very

knowing, deeper minds, more handsome brows –

those gentlemen who have a feel for depth and value

and who can’t not fall in love with every ripple

of her surreptitious sense of the absurd – so fresh

with laughter! – touched with nearly negligible sighs.

This is neither solipsistic nor unwise. Wondrous things

get said in bed with human treats as fully formed

and sweet as she. Play it to the hilt, my dear: release

your talent for the balances of volupté and every

elegant, sharp, brilliant bit of evidence you have  

amassed of what you’re more than certain

is persuasive re: the wars of soul and class

in Proust. Perhaps assume a looser stance

onstage today. Love the play. Be the play.

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