Marty McConnell

treatise on the nature of non-abandonment

Anything can happen next. Tea, or gunshots, or the streetlights
 
 coming on outside this room, and the other, where you
 
 are, with your body so like my body but with its own
 
 particulars, the breasts I have called perfect
 
 and the waist I tug toward me all day, listening for the one
 
 note we produce when the city night slants across us
 
 because someone forgot to pull the curtain
 
 entirely shut. I admit

I imagined you. Despite this, your knees
 
 are real, and your face that I say I love
 
 because I do, and the sound of you turning the pages
 
 of some large magazine full of art displayed in rooms
 
 in countries you visited before I knew you, before
 
 I even imagined you. Now

the question is: How do we go on? And even
 
 more difficultly: What do you want? I’ve kissed women
 
 in cities to which I want never to return, but I would go there
 
 with you. I take too long to unpack my suitcase
 
 every time I come home, until I need
 
 those socks again, until you can’t stand

the sight of it, orange, leaning
 
 against the wall, full of patient fabric
 
 and a foldable toothbrush. What do you want?
 
 How do you want me to give it to you?
 
 The internet is full of stories today about boys
 
 playing Knockout, where they in passing

a complete stranger on the sidewalk, suddenly
 
 lash out with a blow to the back or front
 
 of the head. To enact upon the world
 
 such a specific report of the violence with which
 
 it regularly seeks to kill you seems to me the opposite
 
 of senseless. Maybe it is time to eat
 
 the dictionary. All the newspapers

moldering, unread. What do we mean
 
 when we talk about perfection?
 
 If I’d been better at life would we never
 
 have met? Here is the inventory. Here
 
 is the old lexicon, here all the things
 
 you left behind: Sorrow. Nevermind. Cardinal
 
 sleeping in throat chakra. Meditation cushion. One
 
 espresso maker, barely used. All the pots

and pans. We can go get them. We can bring
 
 them here and eat in our pajamas and kiss in the kitchen
 
 and someday you will tell me the name you called yourself
 
 when you decided to leave that place. You will tell me
 
 what the moon said, and the mirror
 
 the night you decided to come home. Let’s think
 
 about escalators now, and their cousins
 
 the moving walkways in airports. Something

about the woman’s voice that says Caution. The moving
 
 walkway is ending makes me sad, and a little
 
 hysterical, and I love it. Anything can happen next.
 
 It’s been a long century so far, full of clocks and obituaries
 
 and the law. The sight of your leather jacket
 
 emptied over the back of the rocking chair, how hot
 
 this tea is, the books in their authorial order –
 
 comforts. If Camus was right, if speaking

always involves a treason, every promise
 
 I can make you is less than this touch. Still, I think
 
 our speaking redoes the world. So bring me
 
 your philosophies, the car radio, an extra
 
 set of house keys and the toy arrow
 
 deconstructed on your studio floor.
 
 Let’s not leave this world in ruins.

Thing is,

you can be a good father and a terrible person.
 
 You can be a terrible person and a terrible father.
 
 You can be a good person to some people and a terrible person
 
 to other people.
 
 You can be a person who does terrible things.
 
 You can be a person who does good things.
 
 You can be a terrible artist and a good person.
 
 You can be a great artist and a terrible person.
 
 You can be a terrible artist and a terrible person.
 
 It’s hard to photograph the moon through a window.
 
 You can be a terrible person and have great sex.
 
 You can have great sex and be a good person.
 
 You can be a terrible person and have terrible sex.
 
 It’s hard to photograph the moon through a window
 
 even when it’s brighter than the Christmas lights.
 
 You can be a terrible person and have people love you.
 
 You can have people love you and be a good person.
 
 You can do terrible things to some people and good things
 
 to other people.
 
 You can be a person who’s done terrible things.
 
 You can be a person who’s done terrible things and buried them
 
 under the evergreens.
 
 You can be a person who’s done terrible things and unburied them,
 
 lifting them up to the light.
 
 It’s hard to photograph the moon through a window
 
 even when it’s brighter than the Christmas lights
 
 strung on the tree whose branches partly occlude it.
 
 You can make terrible decisions and be a good person.
 
 You can be a good person and make terrible decisions.
 
 You can offer good wine and save the misery for later.
 
 You can offer terrible wine to beloveds and save the good stuff
 
 for strangers.
 
 It’s hard to photograph the moon through a window
 
 even when it’s brighter than the Christmas lights
 
 strung on the tree whose branches partly occlude it
 
 across the street from the house you grew up in.
 
 You can be a person who does terrible things to good people.
 
 You can be a person who does terrible things to terrible people.
 
 You can be a mule to memory or dig up that tree and burn it.
 
 You can be a person who draws the moon with your own face
 
 as its face.
 
 You can be a person who draws the moon as it wants
 
 to be drawn, in the likeness of a thirteen-year-old
 
 who hasn’t lost anyone.
 
 You can be a person.
 
 You can be a person.
 
 You can be a person who burned it all down
 
 in the sight of the moon and be
 
 a good father
 
 and this will not save you either.

Marty McConnell lives in Chicago, Illinois, where she coaches individuals and groups toward building thriving, sustainable lives and organizations. An MFA graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, her work has recently appeared in "Best American Poetry 2014," "Southern Humanities Review," "Gulf Coast," and "Indiana Review." Her first full-length collection, “wine for a shotgun,” was published by EM Press.