When I Listen to Mount Eerie

When I listen to Mount Eerie
I'm ashamed that what I think of first
Is not the death of a loved one
But the physical loss
Of someone I probably never even loved
Not spouse, not child
Just someone whose pain I tried to shoulder for awhile
Who was a little unmoored at the time
Whom I resented
For trying to use me as a blanket
To smother himself with

So I withdrew until he recoiled
And suddenly wasn't there
And the winter sunlight poured in
And the absence left me shivering
And leftover caring spilling out of me for nothing
Into nothing


Truthfully I'm really too old
To maintain these sloppy habits
And the thought that I can just go on like this forever
But even this recognition is too much
And makes something I don't want to let
Crawl from the black of the bag
I can't help but listen to Elverum sometimes
And the more I listen, I don't feel sad anymore
It's a cold, careful scientific study
To prepare me for whatever may be coming

Now that I've picked a partner
Who seems impossibly healthy
Who sleeps the right amount every night
And adjusts the time he gets up
So he can scrape ice off his windshield and still be on time
Who is terrified of ultimate forgetfulness
Whose aesthetic sensibilities and absurd humor
Transcend anything as base as fucking
Whose pullover and core of being are so downy
I could die wrapped in them and not be afraid -
Now I am vulnerable to this awfulness Elverum is singing

But when I think about it
In those old days
Didn't this always lie right beneath the surface
Of the glitter
And the posturing
And the appropriation of classic poetry?
Didn't my old pretend love kiss the top of my head
When I looked at empty wood planters and saw coffins?
Wasn't I in my kindergarten principal's office
Crying all the time
About something I couldn't express?
All of this always has been here
And colored my responses to everything
It's just that somewhere deep I knew the reckoning
Was so far off
It was pointless to think about
But now
It's not