out of his boy’s-own myth.
His sudden shyness protests the plane deserves
The credit. But his eyes are searching for a reason.
Then, to anyone who’d listen: “She’s not here?
But … but I flew the Atlantic because of her.”
At which broadcast remark, she walks across
Her dressing room to turn the radio off.
Remember how it always begins? The film,
That is.
The Rules of the Game,
Renoir’s tragi-
Comedy of manners even then
Outdated, one suspects, that night before
The world woke up at war and all-for-love
Heroes posed a sudden risk, no longer
A curiosity like the silly marquis’s
Mechanical toys, time’s fools, his stuffed
Warbler or the wind-up blackamoor.
Besides, she prefers Octave who shared those years,
From twelve until last week, before and after
The men who let her make the mistakes she would
The morning after endlessly analyze—
This puzzle of a heart in flight from limits—
With her pudgy, devoted, witty, earthbound friend.
II.
—A friend who, after all, was her director,
Who’d written her lines and figured out the angles,
Soulful
auteur
and comic relief in one,
His roles confused as he stepped center-stage
(Albeit costumed as a performing bear)
From behind the camera—or rather, out
Of character. Renoir later told her
The question “how to belong, how to meet”
Was the film’s only moral preoccupation,
A problem the hero, the Jew, and the woman share
With the rest of us whose impulsive sympathies
For the admirable success or loveable failure
Keep from realizing the one terrible thing
Is that everyone has his own good reasons.
The husband wants the logic of the harem—
I.e., no one is thrown out, no one hurt—,
His electric organ with its gaudy trim and come-on,
Stenciled nudes. His wife, who’s had too much
To drink, stumbles into the château’s library
And searches for a lover on the shelf just out
Of reach, the one she learned by heart at school.
The lover, meanwhile (our aviator in tails)
Because love is the rule that breaks the rules,
Dutifully submits to the enchantment of type.
If each person has just one story to tell,
The self a Scheherazade postponing The End,
It’s the friend alone who, night after night, listens,
His back to the camera, his expression now quizzical,
Now encouraging even though, because he has
A story himself, he’s heard it all before.
III.
Is there such a thing as unrequited
Friendship? I doubt it. Even what’s about
The house, as ordinary, as humble as habit—
The mutt, the TV, the rusted window tray
Of African violets in their tinfoil ruffs—
Returns our affection with a loyalty
Two parts pluck and the third a bright instinct
To please. (Our habits too are friends, of course.
The sloppy and aggressive ones as well
Seem pleas for attention from puberty’s
Imaginary comrade or the Job’s comforters
Of middle age.) Office mates or children
Don’t form bonds but are merely busy together,
And acquaintances—that pen pal from Porlock is one—
Slip between the hours. But those we eagerly
Pursue bedevil the clock’s idle hands,
And years later, by then the best of friends,
You’ll settle into a sort of comfy marriage,
The two of you familiar as an old pair of socks,
Each darning the other with faint praise.
More easily mapped than kept to, friendships
Can stray, and who has not taken a wrong turn?
(Nor later put that misstep to good use.)
Ex-friends, dead friends, friends never made but missed,
How they resemble those shrouded chandeliers
Still hanging, embarrassed, noble, in the old palace
Now a state-run district conference center.
One peevish delegate is sitting there
Tapping his earphones because he’s picking up
Static that sounds almost like trembling crystal.
IV.
Most friendships in New York are telephonic,
The actual meetings—the brunch or gallery hop
Or, best, a double-feature of French classics—
Less important than the daily schmooze.
Flopped on the sofa
His sudden shyness protests the plane deserves
The credit. But his eyes are searching for a reason.
Then, to anyone who’d listen: “She’s not here?
But … but I flew the Atlantic because of her.”
At which broadcast remark, she walks across
Her dressing room to turn the radio off.
Remember how it always begins? The film,
That is.
The Rules of the Game,
Renoir’s tragi-
Comedy of manners even then
Outdated, one suspects, that night before
The world woke up at war and all-for-love
Heroes posed a sudden risk, no longer
A curiosity like the silly marquis’s
Mechanical toys, time’s fools, his stuffed
Warbler or the wind-up blackamoor.
Besides, she prefers Octave who shared those years,
From twelve until last week, before and after
The men who let her make the mistakes she would
The morning after endlessly analyze—
This puzzle of a heart in flight from limits—
With her pudgy, devoted, witty, earthbound friend.
II.
—A friend who, after all, was her director,
Who’d written her lines and figured out the angles,
Soulful
auteur
and comic relief in one,
His roles confused as he stepped center-stage
(Albeit costumed as a performing bear)
From behind the camera—or rather, out
Of character. Renoir later told her
The question “how to belong, how to meet”
Was the film’s only moral preoccupation,
A problem the hero, the Jew, and the woman share
With the rest of us whose impulsive sympathies
For the admirable success or loveable failure
Keep from realizing the one terrible thing
Is that everyone has his own good reasons.
The husband wants the logic of the harem—
I.e., no one is thrown out, no one hurt—,
His electric organ with its gaudy trim and come-on,
Stenciled nudes. His wife, who’s had too much
To drink, stumbles into the château’s library
And searches for a lover on the shelf just out
Of reach, the one she learned by heart at school.
The lover, meanwhile (our aviator in tails)
Because love is the rule that breaks the rules,
Dutifully submits to the enchantment of type.
If each person has just one story to tell,
The self a Scheherazade postponing The End,
It’s the friend alone who, night after night, listens,
His back to the camera, his expression now quizzical,
Now encouraging even though, because he has
A story himself, he’s heard it all before.
III.
Is there such a thing as unrequited
Friendship? I doubt it. Even what’s about
The house, as ordinary, as humble as habit—
The mutt, the TV, the rusted window tray
Of African violets in their tinfoil ruffs—
Returns our affection with a loyalty
Two parts pluck and the third a bright instinct
To please. (Our habits too are friends, of course.
The sloppy and aggressive ones as well
Seem pleas for attention from puberty’s
Imaginary comrade or the Job’s comforters
Of middle age.) Office mates or children
Don’t form bonds but are merely busy together,
And acquaintances—that pen pal from Porlock is one—
Slip between the hours. But those we eagerly
Pursue bedevil the clock’s idle hands,
And years later, by then the best of friends,
You’ll settle into a sort of comfy marriage,
The two of you familiar as an old pair of socks,
Each darning the other with faint praise.
More easily mapped than kept to, friendships
Can stray, and who has not taken a wrong turn?
(Nor later put that misstep to good use.)
Ex-friends, dead friends, friends never made but missed,
How they resemble those shrouded chandeliers
Still hanging, embarrassed, noble, in the old palace
Now a state-run district conference center.
One peevish delegate is sitting there
Tapping his earphones because he’s picking up
Static that sounds almost like trembling crystal.
IV.
Most friendships in New York are telephonic,
The actual meetings—the brunch or gallery hop
Or, best, a double-feature of French classics—
Less important than the daily schmooze.
Flopped on the sofa
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