David Huddle: Bliss Happens

I have this theory about dialogue

and compatibility–you know how

in For Esmé with Love and Squalor you

want the scene in the tea room with the boy,

the charmingly precocious Esmé, 

and the soldier narrator to go on

and on, because their talk–the melody, 

cadence and tone, the boy’s interruptions–

it’s talk that charms the heart. I’ve had it in real 

life–folks who conversed with me the way Armstrong

and Fitzgerald sang duets.  Sex appeal

had nothing to do with a conversation

I once had with a cashier at Price Chopper,

a small-talk aria that came close to rapture.

Copyright 2019 David Huddle

David Huddle’s ninth poetry collection, My Surly Heart, will appear from LSU Press later this year.