A Wish

I wanted to give you something for your pain.

But not the drug du jour

or the kind word this side of cliché.

Something you wouldn’t find on a talk show,

in a department store or dark alleyway.

I wanted to give you something for your pain

but I couldn’t imagine what.

Frankincense, myrrh—even gold

seemed too plain (too plain and too gross).

I needed something that wouldn’t have occurred

to you or me, or even Nature: a creature

more fabulous, more imaginary

than you’d find in a rain forest or tapestry

or pixel-loaded screen. Some exotic anodyne

an alchemist or astrophysicist

would be envious of: a chemical reaction,

an astral refraction, an out-of-body,

out-of-mind, one-of-a-kind

transport from your pain, that would last

longer than a day, go deeper than the past.

I would have founded a whole new religion

if I thought that would suffice.

As for love—sacred, profane, or both—

I wanted to give you something

that didn’t arrive with a roll of the dice

and was hard to maintain and had a knack

for disappointing. I wanted to give you

something for your pain that didn’t smack

of a sorcerer’s trick, or a poet’s swoon,

or a psychiatrist’s quip. Nothing too heavy

or spacey or glib. I’d have given you the moon

but it’s been done (and besides, its desolate dust

and relentless tendency to wane

might have only exacerbated your pain).

If I could have given you something

you could depend on, could always trust

without a second thought, I would have.

A splendid view, perhaps, or a strain

of music. A favorite dish. A familiar tree.

A visit from a genie who, in lieu of granting you

a wish, would tend subtly to your every need,

and never once tire, never complain.

But when all was said and done

(or hardly said, not nearly done)

I was as helpless as you. Could you tell—

or were you so overcome your pain was all

that mattered? It seemed to me we were a kind

of kin: willing the mind its bold suspensions,

but the heart, once shattered, never quite matching

its old dimensions. And yet you persevered

in spite of pain, you knew to hold hope

as lightly as you held my hand (a phantom grasp,

a clasp that seemed to come from the other side).

And your genial smile made it plain: you were pleased

by my wish to please. And then you died.

Source: Views from along the Middle Way (Copper Canyon Press, 2002)