A love poem from a guy who sounds like he isn’t able to help
himself get along day to day. Without Kate helping with his everyday issues
like bills, money, cabled communications, bank tellers, as he says, he’d have
jumped in the Liffey and sank long ago. There is a reference to the Op. Posth.
Dream Songs, 78-91, where Henry is dead and speaking from the grave as his body
decays away. They’re very strange, and if I didn’t catch the metaphoric
connection between decay and alcoholism when I first wrote in response to them,
I do now. And the last one, when he gets out finally but then tries to dig his
way back down one night, is hilarious. At any rate, Kate is keeping tabs on the
growing book too, looks like. His secretary and helpmeet. Still haven’t quite
figured that one out, unless the clear neediness of her husband satisfied
something of the caretaker in her.
It’s a nice little poem, with not a lot of complexity. There
is an erotic double entendre there, with the “little soft wet holes” intimating
that there’s something going on there other than just gardening. It’s so intimate,
actually, that maybe we shouldn’t be talking about it even now. Isn’t that the
kind of thing couples keep to themselves? Oh well. I have to admit that it’s a
little squirmy but I don’ t hate it. Her earthiness comes through as beautiful
here. It’s essentialist too, but I don’t think anybody even coined that term
for another decade or so. Let it go.
I hope when she read this they had a nice night together.
Turn off the light…
"I'm doing all this crap for you Mr Poet. You'd better write at least one nice one about me!"
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