Transcript

I’m Major Jackson, and this is The Slowdown.

On any given day, I can call up one of a handful of friends to have tough conversations. Occasionally, I need someone who will challenge my assumptions, who will help me work through matters that are pressing, who will quickly go past the small talk to a deeper exchange, who will call me on my BS and earnest seriousness.

My problem early in life was that I chose my friends solely on who spoke to political matters with gravity, who quoted critical theorists, who had a cerebral nature about them, most of all, who were willing to penetrate the veneer of social conventions and reveal personal challenges. I was drawn to poets who read only poetry; they could speak widely and with depth on any number of poetic traditions. But, I stayed in that space of the world as a quandary, a perennial state of spiritual agitation which weighed on me.

I realized that I desired the balance of my mentors. They moved in the world with authority, yet also had this lightness of being that made them even more luminous. They make sure to laugh and make room for the inconsequential, knowing that to do so risks another kind of vulnerability.

Today’s poem reminds us that revelations unfold from shared conversations, ones where raw insights manifest our most unspoken truths.

A Conversation between Women
by Jennifer Chang

My friend, who lost her husband 
twice, first in death
and then in betrayal, orders
the pinot noir. Outside our window
lemon trees. The loss
she does not speak of—
unable to have children
with a man like that.
                                                       That she could love him
into her wisdom. Despite her wisdom.
We call that love, the despite-ness.
As if by being senseless, the heart becomes brave.
I think of trees I had
but did not want, the length 
of my marriages, what to do
next summer. My other friend,
who decided not to marry,
explains why. We look at the sky
because there is nowhere else 
to look. For hours I will sip at my drink,
hazarding clarity, such salt.
                                                                    A teacher once said
there is no place for “because” in poetry
because reasons are not poetic. I wrote
no poems then, though I opened wounds
every day. I want to be alone
I said to my first husband. I want to be
alone I would one day say 
to my next husband.
                                                       Without an image,
the teacher intoned, no one will believe
there is pain. His wife hated him, I 
observed; she found no pleasure
in any conversation. Oh, I wrote
no poems then. The neighbors could hear
our screaming, mistook it for television 
or the trees. Because I hated him
I think of him now.
                                                      If only that were reason enough.

“A Conversation Between Women” by Jennifer Chang from AN AUTHENTIC LIFE © 2024 Jennifer Chang. Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Copper Canyon Press.