With A Ten-Foot Pole, by Robert Mezey

With A Ten-Foot Pole

The sky is white and nerveless and involves
Standing off at a ludicrous distance, thinking
Bad thoughts — well, not bad really, rather say
Homeless, images of a time and place
Long since scattered to dust — but still, what power!
My dearest wish — but one shouldn't have wishes,
Wishes are horses that kick you in the heart,
Then ask you if you'd like another ride.
I rode one once, or let's say she rode me —
But you don't want to hear that story again.
I know I don't. Maybe you'd like to hear
About a time and place that kept their distance.
The sky was white and nerveless . . . leave it at that.

          — Robert Mezey, in the 10/3/05 New Yorker.

I'm drawn to this poem and dissatisfied by it at the same time. It fit really well with my week, in some ways; I spent some time a few nights ago googling people I'd loved and lost or let go, which is an odd and melancholy thing to do and I'm not sure why I was doing it. So I'm hearing the regret for the past, and the idea about futile wishes, and I like some of the imagery. But I hate that he chooses the female pronoun "she" instead of calling the wish "it" - it makes this a poem about love lost and all sorts of tedious teenage angst topics like "walls" and getting "too close" to people, instead of being a poem about distance and desire in a more universal sense, and why we engage and disengage. He should have known better; he says in the poem, "But you don't want to hear that story again," and I really didn't. Still, there's enough in it to make me think, so that's something.