desire doubled is love and love doubled is madness. anne carson, the beauty of the husband.

madness doubled is marriage.

saw anne carson at mcnally’s last weekend. as i waited in line for her to sign my book, i admonished myself to not say anything stupid as i have done in the past while writers have been signing my books (john updike, chang rae lee, vendela videa, george saunders, etc). she was nice and i know she was nice because when i told her to “enjoy the weather” laughing nervously, she laughed, nervously along, too. that’s nice.

before i went to the reading, i reread “the beauty of the husband.” here’s some marvelous shit from her hand that filled my head with dreams of a tan and brawny asian man for days after:

a wound gives off its own light/surgeons say

loyal to nothing/ my husband. so why did i love him from early girlhood to late middle age/and the divorce decree came in the mail?/beauty./no great secret./not ashamed to say i loved him for his beauty./as i would again/ if he came near./beauty convinces. you know beauty makes sex possible./beauty makes sex sex.

we have this deep sadness between us and its spells so habitual i/can’t/tell it from love.

rabbis liken the torah to the narrow sex of the gazelle/for whose husband every time/is like the first time.

you know how they say a zen butcher makes one correct cut and the whole ox/falls apart/like a puzzle.

coward./i know./betrayer./yes./opportunist./i can see why you would think that./slave./go on./faithless lecherous child./okay./liar./what can i say./liar./but./liar./but please./destroyer liar sadist fake./please./please what./save me./who else do you say that to./no one./no one he says.

bloodless monster! had i never/seen or known your/kindness what/might i/have been.

pretty good, right? afterwards, i’d wake in the early morning to see the frenchman’s pale, lovely freckled back to me and feel guilt, like a steel rod from my throat to my coccyx, my body full of longing for another. but it was a dream, just a dream. first of all, who cares what our subconscious wants. and second, it does not want good things. case in point, i dream of beating my mother. so there. without the choices we have made to in this life, we are animals full of bloodlust. forgive me for even writing about it.