How To Like It<\/p>\n
These are the first days of fall. The wind
\nat evening smells of roads still to be traveled,
\nwhile the sound of leaves blowing across the lawns
\nis like an unsettled feeling in the blood,
\nthe desire to get in a car and just keep driving.
\nA man and a dog descend their front steps.
\nThe dog says, Let’s go downtown and get crazy drunk.
\nLet’s tip over all the trash cans we can find.
\nThis is how dogs deal with the prospect of change.
\nBut in his sense of the season, the man is struck
\nby the oppressiveness of his past, how his memories
\nwhich were shifting and fluid have grown more solid
\nuntil it seems he can see remembered faces
\ncaught up among the dark places in the trees.
\nThe dog says, Let’s pick up some girls and just
\nrip off their clothes. Let’s dig holes everywhere.
\nAbove his house, the man notices wisps of cloud
\ncrossing the face of the moon. Like in a movie,
\nhe says to himself, a movie about a person
\nleaving on a journey. He looks down the street
\nto the hills outside of town and finds the cut
\nwhere the road heads north. He thinks of driving
\non that road and the dusty smell of the car
\nheater, which hasn’t been used since last winter.
\nThe dog says, Let’s go down to the diner and sniff
\npeople’s legs. Let’s stuff ourselves on burgers.
\nIn the man’s mind, the road is empty and dark.
\nPine trees press down to the edge of the shoulder,
\nwhere the eyes of animals, fixed in his headlights,
\nshine like small cautions against the night.
\nSometimes a passing truck makes his whole car shake.
\nThe dog says, Let’s go to sleep. Let’s lie down
\nby the fire and put our tails over our noses.
\nBut the man wants to drive all night, crossing
\none state line after another, and never stop
\nuntil the sun creeps into his rearview mirror.
\nThen he’ll pull over and rest awhile before
\nstarting again, and at dusk he’ll crest a hill
\nand there, filling a valley, will be the lights
\nof a city entirely new to him.
\nBut the dog says, Let’s just go back inside.
\nLet’s not do anything tonight. So they
\nwalk back up the sidewalk to the front steps.
\nHow is it possible to want so many things
\nand still want nothing. The man wants to sleep
\nand wants to hit his head again and again
\nagainst a wall. Why is it all so difficult?
\nBut the dog says, Let’s go make a sandwich.
\nLet’s make the tallest sandwich anyone’s ever seen.
\nAnd that’s what they do and that’s where the man’s
\nwife finds him, staring into the refrigerator
\nas if into the place where the answers are kept-
\nthe ones telling why you get up in the morning
\nand how it is possible to sleep at night,
\nanswers to what comes next and how to like it.<\/p>\n
Stephen Dobbins
\nFrom VELOCITIES: NEW & SELECTED POEMS (Penguin, 1994)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How To Like It These are the first days of fall. The wind at evening smells of roads still to be traveled, while the sound of leaves blowing across the lawns is like an unsettled feeling in the blood, the desire to get in a car and just keep driving. A man and a dog descend their front steps. The dog says, Let’s go downtown and get crazy drunk. Let’s tip over all the trash… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1kHSD-5b8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19910"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19911,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19910\/revisions\/19911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}