A Poem by Noah Eli Gordon
In Praise of Negative Capability
I must have been about twenty
Old enough to sneak into a bar
But not to frequent one
Not that it’s important
Save to establish authenticity
But this was when my mother
Lived in Pompano Beach
Right by the intercostal
I was going to visit Marcus
Who was hanging out at Ray’s
Ray lived on the other side
Of the water so I had to cross over
The road when the bridge
Was down which was often
Late at night like this
South Florida in the 90s
Was one of the few places
Where people could still disappear
And most everyone I encountered
Was on the cusp of doing so
Rounding the corner this red car
Skids out in front of me
Some kind of expensive convertible
I was walking in the street
(Because there weren’t sidewalks)
I’m sure the driver didn’t see me
He had the top down
And let fly what looked like
The desiccated remnants
Of a dove before speeding off
Tiny white pieces covered the road
They were just paper just a letter
I collected the torn-up squares
And walked on to Ray’s to get
High with him and Marcus
Later I reassembled the entire thing
A two-page letter to a now-ex lover
It was a pretty standard affair
The mystery for me was that I was there
At the intersection of this drama
And I wish I hadn’t worked so hard
To piece the thing back together
Since it would have been better
Had I left it as a dove
Noah Eli Gordon lives in Denver and teaches in the MFA Program at CU–Boulder, where he currently directs Subito Press. His books include The Word Kingdom in the Word Kingdom (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2015) and Novel Pictorial Noise (Harper Perennial, 2007), which was selected by John Ashbery for the National Poetry Series and subsequently chosen for the San Francisco State Poetry Center Book Award.
The Poetry Section is edited by Mark Bibbins.