Venice, 1958 by Gianni Berengo Gardin
Not Easy:
(If I titled this poem the name of your band it would be too obvious)
I want you to be
loved. I want you
to be loved
the way you loved
me. Loved like
I love you now
but I can’t tell you and it can’t be
Me:
The one and only one who--well I just I don’t think you’d be very--well, there’s just no calling anymore to say hello, let alone... These days my voice would be a stone on your boat. So the phone,
I put it down. Loving you now can’t make a sound.
(Barely a poem.)
Loving you now: I can’t even remember what I said the last I saw you,
I don’t even remember
how we said goodbye.
The last you
I remember
I saw through
a window.
I was outside
beaming proud I was
that they’d come
my friends
all the way to Jersey
just to say goodbye to me. Send me off. Bon
Voyage. Hip hip hooray
My going away party.
They there
meant so much more
because no one ever came
west from the big city.
More than
you always came
every time and every distance always
just because
I remember us
two at the four-top.
Our first date.
I was seventeen
when I felt, then, that love
was like the movies
perfect
and just as easy.
And when you loved me,
it was confirmed.
(Maybe) that’s why
I ended it. Movies end. If my life can’t be
one long
action adventure romantic comedy then
I’m ending it. I was twenty-one.
There’s no forgetting crying like that
lying with you in the little bed
in the little room white and blue
with the doorway I was born right in your mom’s house.
You said
not yet stay.
I said okay.
We wallowed in sadness
until I couldn’t
take it anymore.
I got up. You reached
for me.
I left.
But
the party was
four years later.
I was twenty-five
saying farewell to
a yardful of
friends
before taking
off on
my next action adventure romantic tragedy.
Four years
we were “friends.”
We each had our reasons to pretend.
I needed
you for comfort stability a gift (you were)
the cake I didn’t eat
anything
you’d say yes to
everything.
You hoped
I’d come back around.
It could be like it was.
It could be love again. I could come back to you.
We never actually said it but--well,
It didn’t matter how
wrong--I knew
I couldn’t stop.
I needed
those things you
gave me! and
you
made it so easy.
You hoped I’d come back.
I went
only further
until I went furthest just before I left.
I was outside
that window. You were right there.
The kitchen! of all places
I was laughing happy
they came for me!
Forty minutes
out of the apple
core of the universe
What magnanimity!
to say goodbye.
Laughter silent from the kitchen Goodbye! Goodbye!
Oh, it won't be long!
I don’t remember what we said. (I love you.)
I don’t remember how
long I hugged
you. Going away
party. My party.
My day,
My friends and
me. You,
the most
important
person of
My life, I ignored.
The one
goodbye
I don’t remember.
To my
one
I do remember
what was
is what exactly where I was when--
Out on the road,
two months or so, in my black boots with the laces, with the blue dress, red hair wind-messed,
kicking my tires
in the sunny drive of some new friend’s house in Jacksonville, Florida.
The call only lasted about four minutes.
You said it was the day.
I said okay.
Why does this feel so easy?
Your question on the edge of
tears expecting me to be the way I’d always been.
It’s the least I can do for you.
Goodbye.
That I remember exactly. That
you deserve to be loved
better than the way I loved you.
I am twenty-nine
years and years get
easier and easier
for you
I hope.
I pray my only prayer.
For me,
it's not
so easy to
see time
and distance
love you better than
it’s too late for
Me
My mom
My grandma
My friends--
Everyone who ever met you
Anyone who ever got a glimpse of who we were
Everyone asked
“Do you regret it?”
Everyone said
“You will.”
And I do
some but not the big reason (that)
I needed time and distance
to love me too. God
bless that tiny pin of truth that stops this
red heart from snapping shut,
but belly up its cracks instead
lap white and blue.
I know there’s no home
to go back to
where
I no longer belong where (I know)
I’ll never get to return
your love
to you.