A Posthumous Poetics

By Michael Ryan

From embarrassment, I made statements.

My icons—tight caves and mouths—stuck together

briefly like dry lips, like a lover’s insults.

The fact is they were ugly to all of us.

I said, How painstakingly personal!

Here are the words for this,

Relentless as insects! I was hysterical.

Every tone became artful,

the worst urges nuzzling like housepets

for someone to feel them, each real subject

demanding more real context for remarks.

Then abstractions insinuating their sharp edges,

asking to pry open privacies

alone in the bathroom at bedtime

then with strangers in elevators, at stop signs.

Even then, I knew you’d shun them,

because who would choose such intrusions?

I learned to love this isolation

as a woman who appears to listen.

All night I’d talk about my life

anticipating her dramatic relief,

believing her affectionate gestures filled in

what wasn’t spoken. At those times

she seemed so genuine and friendly,

a voice from inside my own body

describing my shameless surrender

as our first kiss, perfect as gravity.

Copyright Credit: Michael Ryan, “A Posthumous Poetics” from New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 2004 by Michael Ryan. Used by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Source: Poetry (September 1973)