I don't miss the days of seeking romantic partners on Craigslist, but I sometimes recall with fondness -- or at least mordant humor -- the insights into human nature that I found there. We are a notoriously needy species, and rarely do our needs stand naked more than when we lay out our criteria for soulmates. One day, scrolling the list of postings, I found one by a woman seeking "Tall Native American Guy Who Likes Punk Rock." Leaving aside the odds of finding a man who met that exact fetish, I wondered if, in the event that the author got lucky, she would find herself marginalized by his own forbidding standards. Suppose there was a tall Native American guy out there who liked punk rock and who was actively seeking a petite Mongolian woman who liked 1940s ballads. Would they still be compatible even if they didn't live up the other's ideals for height, race, and musical acumen?
I will never know. I do know, however, that I once miserably failed a stranger's test on Craigslist, and the tragic flaw turned out to be my height: The post's author listed an extensive series of desirable qualities in a partner, and her list read like an intimate friend's description of me. Then, at the bottom, she added that she was 5'8" -- same as me -- and that she would not accept any partner who was not taller than her. I responded to her and asked if she could settle for a partner who, pun intended, saw perfectly eye to eye with her. She didn't reply. Our lives are our art, but we don't always approach them like painters or novelists. Sometimes, we work like casting directors. Think back on your own life and count the significant people who weren't imposed on you by family or other inevitable circumstances; chances are that they'll make up the vast majority. In the sandbox at preschool, we choose the other toddlers to play with. As childhood goes on, we choose friends and then choose groups, not necessarily in that order. Eventually, many of us choose a partner to live with. Our criteria may be less silly than demanding tall Navajos who relish the Sex Pistols, but we have criteria nevertheless. My poem this week in the Journal of Radical Wonder, "Last Date Before the Proposal," is about two prospective spouses who are auditioning each other for a part. I wrote this poem more than a decade ago, and it is one that I am particularly proud of, because I have not outgrown it since then. "Love's no romance," Paul Simon once sang. There are definitely such things as love and romance, but they only sometimes intertwine. This poem is about the business end of love. That's not what we pine for on Craiglist, but it's worth asking the tall Native American guy about his credit history and willingness to do the dishes. "Last Date Before the Proposal" is from The First Thing Mastered, which covers the first three and a half decades of life in chronological order. It comes near the end, with a number of giddier poems before it. As a poet, I have always had a hard time with romance; maybe it requires a surrender of gravity that I have trouble achieving. Maybe Shakespeare and Neruda and the other masters have just said it better than I could. No matter. "Last Date Before the Proposal" is not romantic, but it is about love, and not in a cynical or dismissive way. The characters at the heart of the poem love each other, deeply, and they are asking all the right questions about it. Have they been married already? Maybe; I intended the line "Each of us has been here before" to be ambiguous. Perhaps "here" just means in a state of contemplation, or perhaps they are thinking of their last date in the same location. The pair talk about the films of Akira Kurosawa, but loving his films is not a prerequisite for marriage; the man simply notes that the woman praises them for their humanistic quality. That must mean that she is a good person. If they agree on humanism, then they may grant themselves different tastes in movies or music. What is more important is his hand -- how he keeps it steady, how it is gentle enough to hold the wine glass. Perhaps she has known a more volatile hand in the past. Love has so little to do with wine. It has so little to do with Kurosawa, or punk rock, or so many other arbitrary things. It is a commitment that is one part bliss and a large part selflessness, collaboration, and responsibility. After being married for twelve years, I would like to think that I know that. The characters in "Last Date Before the Proposal" know it too. We never find out how they fare as a married couple, but we never find out the same about Romeo and Juliet. May they find happiness of the rational kind. The poem ends with a line that I wouldn't have written when I was a few years younger: "We part with a handshake, disguised as a kiss." Shaking hands is one way of holding them. That's what you get for your beautiful ring.
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This is the blog of Michael Miller, a longtime journalist, poet, publisher and teacher. Check here for musings, observations, commentary and assorted bits of gratitude. Archives
July 2023
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