I was sitting in a bar last night, talking to a friend who was from time to time looking down the bar at his wife. They had been separated for two years: no hope.
She was palling it up with another man. They looked as if they were having a lot of fun.
My friend turned and asked me about two books of my poetry. I'm a minor poet; even so, people sometimes ask me questions like that.
He said he used to have the books but he didn't have them anymore. They were gone. I said that one of the books was out of print and copies of the other book were down at City Lights Bookstore.
He took a look down at his wife. She was laughing at something the other man had said, who was then quite pleased with himself, and so it goes.
"I have a confession to make," my friend said. "Remember that night I came home from work and found you and my wife drunk together on sweet vermouth in the kitchen?"
I remembered the evening, though nothing had happened. We were just sitting there in the kitchen, listening to the phonograph and drunk on sweet vermouth. There were probably thousands like us all across America.
"Well, when you left, I went and got those two books of your poetry out of the bookcase and tore them up and threw the pieces on the floor. All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't have put those books of poetry back together again."
"Win a few, lose a few," I said.
"What?" he said.
He was a little drunk. There were three empty beer bottles in front of him on the bar. Their labels had been carefully scratched off.
"I just write the poetry," I said. "I'm not a shepherd of the pages. I can't look after them forever. It wouldn't make sense."
I was also a little drunk.
"Anyway," my friend said, "I would like to have those books again. Where can I get them?"
"One of them has been out of print for five years. The other one you can get at City Lights," I said, busy putting together and filming in my mind what went on after I left the kitchen and went home, glowing like a lantern in sweet vermouth.
What he said to her before he went and got the books of poetry and tore them up. What she said, what he said, which book went first, the way he tore it. Oh, a lovely act of healthy outrage and what was taken care of after that.
•••
I was at City Lights a year ago and saw somebody looking at one of my books of poetry. He was pleased with the book, but there was a reluctance to his pleasure.
He looked at the cover again and turned the pages again. He stopped the pages as if they were the hands of a clock and he was pleased at what time it was. He read a poem at seven o'clock in the book. Then the reluctance came again and clouded up the time.
He put the book back on the shelf, then he took it off the shelf. His reluctance had become a form of nervous energy.
Finally, he reached into his pocket and took out a penny. He placed the book in the crook of his arm. The book was now a nest and the poems were eggs. He threw the penny up into the air, caught it and slapped it onto the back of his hand. He took his other hand away.
He put the book of poetry back on the shelf and left the bookstore. As he walked out, he looked very relaxed. I walked over and found his reluctance lying there on the floor.
It was like clay but nervous and fidgeting. I put it into my pocket. I took it home with me and shaped it into this, having nothing better to do with my time.
