poetry for breakfast

November 25,2015

 

Paul Durcan (Ireland,1944)

 

"The Arnolfini Marriage"

 

We are the Arnolfinis.
Do not think you may invade
Our privacy because you may not.

 

We are standing to our portrait,
The most erotic portrait ever made,
Because we have faith in the artist

 

To do justice to the plurality,
Fertility, domesticity, barefootedness
Of a man and a woman saying "we":

 

To do justice to our bed
As being our most necessary furniture;
To do justice to our life as a reflection.

 

Our brains spill out upon the floor
And the terrier at our feet sniffs
The minutiae of our magnitude.

 

The most relaxing word in our vocabulary is "we".
Imagine being able to say "we".
Most people are in no position to say "we".

 

Are you? Who eat alone? Sleep alone? 
And at dawn cycle to work
With an Alsatian shepherd dog tied to your handlebars?

 

We will pause now for the Angelus.
Here you have it:
The two halves of the coconut.