The Chair

a Poem

“The Poet,” oil on plexi, ca. 1982

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Within each of us, there is a remarkable recipe, an equation of chemicals stirring up magnetic persuasions. We go from adolescence into adulthood. We fall in love, a tethering seed that, to varying degrees, requires a sacrifice of pure 'Self' toward a bonding relationship with someone else. These are seeds of Nature's urgent blooming until, of course, more often than not, the chemicals begin to diminish, the recipe weakens, the tethering untethers, and we must gather our Self back as a single entity and begin again. I wrote "The Chair" after a ten-year relationship ended, initially in discord, but I was determined to hold onto parts that remain sacred, imagining there were more characters in the play than just the two of us. There always are.

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The Chair

With a last word said, your head turns away
with a silence you leave between us. 

There’s not an empty chair in the room.
Stacks of books, piles of clothes, things 
never used lay everywhere, 
your back so unfamiliar now. Cold and brittle,
so tense even the dishes could cry.

Listen. 
I could tell you things that might make a difference in our lives, 
                  but you’re busy
fingering the books, dividing yours from mine. 
The paintings I gave you are good ones. Take them; 
take all the photographs too. 
And the promises we made last week? 
We might as well leave those 
with the old armchair. It stays.

You stare across the room as if waiting
for the door to speak. It won’t.
                What little to be said has been said
as all outside sweeps us apart.

I know you won’t believe it, but the distances we’ll drift 
need not be so final. 
We need not carve such indelible pain
in the folds of our heart 
where what is lasting still grows
from the pulses of two people.

Let’s pretend the chair that stays cares 
and its arms are weeping for the loss of things,
               of books and clothes that remember.

Let’s pretend the chair wants to rehang the paintings; 
perhaps not in the same place, but here, 
              in this house, 
with the books back, 
the clothes hung,
and the dishes dry. 
Let’s pretend for a while. 
Let’s comfort the chair, you and I.

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Thanks for visiting, for reading, for being. Stay strong!

Galen