Unwritten Law by Louise Glück

Louise Glück

Unwritten Law by Louise Glück

T.

I suppose I am disgusted by this how this is turning out I’ve brought out all the sad poems because I can’t cry and now this place is riddled with unshed tears and I am turning into a revolting heap of patheticness and I can’t write for shit and oh god—

Unwritten Law

Louise Glück

Interesting how we fall in love:

In my case, absolutely. Absolutely, and, alas, often—

so it was in my youth.

And always with rather boyish men—

unformed, sullen, or shyly kicking the dead leaves:

in the manner of Balanchine.

Nor did I see them as versions of the same thing.

I, with my inflexible Platonism,

my fierce seeing of only one thing at a time:

I ruled against the indefinite article.

And yet, the mistakes of my youth

made me hopeless, because they repeated themselves,

as is commonly true.

But in you I felt something beyond the archetype—

a true expansiveness, a buoyance and love of the earth

utterly alien to my nature. To my credit,

I blessed my good fortune in you.

Blessed it absolutely, in the manner of those years.

And you in your wisdom and cruelty

gradually taught me the meaninglessness of that term.

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poetry