The Loser

A man thinks of the woman he once loved: first, after her wedding, and then nearly a decade later.

1.
I kissed you, bride and lost, and went
home from that bougeois sacrament,
your cheek still tasting cold upon
my lips that gave you benison
with all the swagger that they knew—
as losers somehow learn to do.

Your wedding made my eyes ache; soon
the world would be worse off for one
more golden apple dropped to ground
without the least protesting sound,
and you would windfall lie, and we
forget your shimmer on the tree.

Beauty is always wasted: if
not Mignon's song sung to the deaf,
at all events to the unmoved.
A face like yours cannot be loved
long or seriously enough.
Almost, we seem to hold it off.

2.
Well, you are tougher than I thought.
Now when the wash with ice hangs taut
this morning of St. Valentine,
I see you strip the squeaking line,
your body weighed against the load,
and all my groans can do no good.

Because you are still beautiful,
Though squared and stiffened by the pull
of what nine windy years have done.
You have three daughters, lost a son.
I see all your intelligence
flung into that unwearied stance.

My envy is of no avail.
I turn my head and wish him well
who chafed your beauty into use
and lives forever in a house
lit by the friction of your mind.
You stagger in against the wind.

— Adrienne Rich, 1958

It's a little disarming to pull a favorite book from the shelf and see that the pages have gone and yellowed on me. Does that happen to you? Was it that long ago that I bought it? In my defense, The Fact of a Doorframe, like many of my other books, was purchased used — and for only $4.50. When I think of the profound influence poems like The Loser had one me, it's almost an incomprehensible bargain.

Someday perhaps I'll tell the story of how the dress and veil came to be hanging in the closet.