Obviously, I'm Jealous.

(This poem isn't actually in our book. But it makes me jealous just the same.)

Personal. by Tony Hoagland. 


Don’t take it personal, they said;
but I did, I took it all quite personal—

the breeze and the river and the color of the fields;
the price of grapefruit and stamps,

the wet hair of women in the rain—
And I cursed what hurt me

and I praised what gave me joy,
the most simple-minded of possible responses.

The government reminded me of my father,
with its deafness and its laws,

and the weather reminded me of my mom,
with her tropical squalls.

Enjoy it while you can, they said of Happiness
Think first, they said of Talk

Get over it, they said
at the School of Broken Hearts

but I couldn’t and I didn’t and I don’t
believe in the clean break;

I believe in the compound fracture
served with a sauce of dirty regret,

I believe in saying it all
and taking it all back

and saying it again for good measure
while the air fills up with I’m-Sorries

like wheeling birds
and the trees look seasick in the wind.

Oh life! Can you blame me
for making a scene?

You were that yellow caboose, the moon
disappearing over a ridge of cloud.

I was the dog, chained in some fool’s backyard;
barking and barking:

trying to convince everything else
to take it personal too.

Poems like this make me jealous.

From an Atlas of the Difficult World
Adrienne Rich 

  I know you are reading this poem
  late, before leaving your office
  of the one intense yellow lamp-spot and the darkening window
  in the lassitude of a building faded to quiet
  long after rush-hour.  I know you are reading this poem
  standing up in a bookstore far from the ocean
  on a grey day of early spring, faint flakes driven
  across the plains' enormous spaces around you.
  I know you are reading this poem
  in a room where too much has happened for you to bear
  where the bedclothes lie in stagnant coils on the bed
  and the open valise speaks of flight
  but you cannot leave yet.  I know you are reading this poem
  as the underground train loses momentum and before running
                          up the stairs
  toward a new kind of love
  your life has never allowed.
  I know you are reading this poem by the light
  of the television screen where soundless images jerk and slide
  while you wait for the newscast from the intifada.
  I know you are reading this poem in a waiting-room
  of eyes met and unmeeting, of identity with strangers.
  I know you are reading this poem by fluorescent light
  in the boredom and fatigue of the young who are counted out,
  count themselves out, at too early an age.  I know
  you are reading this poem through your failing sight, the thick
  lens enlarging these letters beyond all meaning yet you read on
  because even the alphabet is precious.
  I know you are reading this poem as you pace beside the stove
  warming milk, a crying child on your shoulder, a book in your
                          hand
  because life is short and you too are thirsty.
  I know you are reading this poem which is not in your language
  guessing at some words while others keep you reading
  and I want to know which words they are.
  I know you are reading this poem listening for something, torn
                          between bitterness and hope
  turning back once again to the task you cannot refuse.
  I know you are reading this poem because there is nothing else
                          left to read
  there where you have landed, stripped as you are.