Tess Gallagher - 'The Hug'

[verian.livejournal.com]

A woman is reading a poem on the street
and another woman stops to listen. We stop too,
with our arms around each other. The poem
is being read and listened to out here
in the open. Behined us
no one is entering or leaving the houses.

Suddenly a hug comes over me and I'm
giving it to you, like a variable star shooting light
off to make itself comfortable, then
subsiding. I finish but keep on holding
you. A man walks up to us and we know he hasn't
come out of nowhere, but if he could, he
would have. He looks homeless because of how
he needs. 'Can I have one of those?' he asks you,
and I feel you nod. I'm surprised,
surprised you don't tell him how
it is - that I'm yours, only
yours, etc., exclusive as a nose to
its face. Love - that's what we're talking about, love
that nabs you with 'for me
only' and holds on.

So I walk over to him and put my
arms around him and try to
hug him like I mean it. He's got an overcoat on
so thick I can't feel
him past it. I'm starting the hug
and thinking, 'How big is this huf supposed to be?
How long shall I hold this hug?' Already
we could be eternal, his arms falling over my
shoulders, my hands not
meeting behined his back, he is so big!

I putmy head into his chest and snuggle
in. I lean into him. I lean my blood and my wishes
into him. He stands for it. This is his
and he's starting to give it back so well I know he's
getting it. This hug. So truly, so tenderley
we stop having arms and I don't know if
my lover has walked away or what, or
if the woman is still reading thepoem, or the houses -
what about them? - the houses.

Clearly, a little permission is a dangerous thing.
But when you hug someone you want it
to be a masterpiece of connection, the way the button
on his coat will leave an imprint of
a planet on my cheek
when I walk away. When I try to find some place
to go back to.

Comments

[adarkjewel.livejournal.com]

Light, I love Tess Gallagher. Thank you for sharing this poem. I hadn't read it before.

Re:

[verian.livejournal.com]

I'd never heard of her until I read this in an anthology and I really liked it. Time to search out some more.

[adarkjewel.livejournal.com]

Yes, do. Tess wrote an amazing book of poetry called, "Moon Crossing Bridge," after her husband/soulmate died. Her husband, by the way, was short story writer Raymond Carver and the book was her way of living through the first year of grief.

Here's a snippet from one of my favorite Gallagher poems:

I forget what I'm doing and call out to him. It's me! How
could you go off like that? Just as things were
getting good. I'm petulant, reminding him of his promise
to take me in a sleigh pulled by horses
with bells. He looks back in the dream -- the way
a violin might glance across a room at its bow
about to be used for kindling. He doesn't
try to stop anything. Not the dancing. Not the deafness
of my poems when they arrive like a sack of wet
stones. Yes, he can step back into life just long enough
for eternity to catch hold, until one of us
is able to watch and to write the deaf poem,
a poem missing even the language
it is unwritten in.

--From "Deaf Poem"

Re:

[verian.livejournal.com]

Great excerpt and I think I will search out more, possibly that book (I feel an e-bay search coming on).

I didn't connect that she was anything to do with Carver until you said, though I think I might have read it in the intro to his collected short stories (which is an amazing book - how I aspire to be etc.)

Thank you :)