Are all of our moments, even our most intimate moments, endlessly defined by global concerns?
Some poets have been trying their best to answer this question. Some poets have traveled much farther than other poets in their attempts. Some have arrived at this question a lot earlier than the others and so they have been working away at their responses for quite a while. But other poets who have not yet been as dedicated are still very much concerned about the question. But it is also true that some poets dance around the question, not exactly avoiding it, because avoiding it is the last thing they want to do. In fact, a lot of poets who might look to the outside world as if they are avoiding the question actually want this to be The Only Question, even though they understand that if this were the only question then perhaps there would be no need for poetry, or at the very least poetry could be released from the need for this to be its Only Question so that it could talk about things like magick &/or love without feeling any guilt.
What if in response to The Question all the poets in the world simply wrote Yes? And what if these Yesses from our global poetry sistren and brethren were said consecutively as opposed to simultaneously. So the answer was not simply Yes but Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes . . . ? Would this also make the response to The Question into a global poem about love?
So.
When she got pregnant, she told him she didn’t want to keep it. And he swore he would support her. The word support was never defined, but she had believed him. She made all the phone calls, she set up the doctor’s appointment. Booked the train tickets. Packed her overnight bag. All he needed to do was to show up. Be there for her. Accompany her to the doctor’s. All he had to do was sit in the waitingroom while she was forced to listen to the fetus’s heartbeat and to listen to the doctor tell her Here I see a diaphragm, and here I see four healthy chambers of the heart…. All he had to do was wait outside, while she was inside the surgery, sobbing. All he had to do was show up with her the next day to push away the protestors with the placards of dead fetuses. All he had to do was make a path for her to follow to the door. All he had to do was sit in the waitingroom while the procedure was performed. All he had to do was ask her if she was okay to walk. All he had to do was hail the taxi that would take them to the train station. All he had to do was ensure her comfort for the ride. Buy her tea. Hold her hand. See her to her home. Put her to bed. But when the day came, he did not show up at her home. And he did not show up for the journey. Or the appointment. Or the abortion. Or the journey home. She did it all alone.
So. Yes.