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.
Speaking as a former cashier and longtime New Yorker, I dig this poem.
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I love this poem!
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