Naya Valdellon's "Double Takes"

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Double Takes
by Naya Valdellon

    About suffering, they were never wrong,
    The Old Masters: how well they understood
    Its human position; how it takes place
    While someone is eating or opening a window or just walking
    dully along.

    - W.H. Auden

They may have been right about suffering,
though you wish they had warned: It’s the same

for love. When you’re immersed, it’s as if moonlight
never waltzed on waves at midnight before,

as if ferries had never borne the weight of so many
hungry passengers hurrying back to their hometowns.

Days later, when friends ask how it happened,
you fumble with a forkful of words: Somewhere

between the seawall and the fire escape, he became
a you to me. But they are already sailing away,

ice cubes clinking as they sip and think of what next
to say, anything but: We bet this won’t last.

You step into rooms and can almost taste the brine
in sideways glances of people you both know,

the fishy smell of rumors in the air: One of them
jumped ship; the other could have done better.

It’s tempura vendors and strangers behind counters
who throw the slippery question: Are you two

together? Yes is easier to swallow than the truth:
It’s complicated. Between you and others are words

spilling like cigarette ashes through a fire escape’s
grills—too late to dash down and catch mid-air embers

in your hand. When the extinguished sparks land,
family members’ mouths twitch with watered-down

versions of: We told you so. You are never lonelier
than when you are in love. In the sunless hours

of a monsoon morning, no one sees you folding up
the cocktail parasol of the last drink you shared,

its paper the color of an ancient summer sky
no longer able to shield you from so much rain.


♥ 2003