A Stephen Dunn poem for Thursday

THE SONG
BY STEPHEN DUNN

Late at night a song
breaks off, unfinished,
that rose from the street
outside your apartment,
not a cry but a song,
and something you recognize
as sadness
comes over you.
The street is empty
when you look.
The sadness, too,
is not locatable,
a referent lost somewhere
like an address book
from one of your other lives
with a page missing,
names that must
have mattered once.
A woman was singing
or perhaps a man
with the kind of voice
that has so much woman in it
you should fear for his safety.
The song was familiar,
and it strikes you now
that maybe you were dreaming
or even, yes, it was you
yourself singing.
All night long you wait
for it to start again.
There's only the sound
of cars, and, nearer,
though you can't get that near,
your heart.
You've faked so many feelings
in your time you wonder
if it could have been
the ghost of faked feelings
offering you an authentic sadness,
a gift. But you're so tired,
so on that edge
between clarity and silliness,
you might think anything.
Dawn comes with its intermittency,
its tempo that hasn't
yet lengthened into traffic.
You haven't slept, you swear it,
though you know
when it comes to that
most people are mistaken.

("The Song" reprinted from "Loosestrife" © 1996 by Stephen Dunn.)


All Over the Place...sounds about right though I wanted to be a poet. I'm definitely not a novelist, I'm blowing NaNoWriMo big time. Getting some stories done though.


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