Vox Populi
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Alice Friman: The Nick Poems
1.
“Perfection rested on them for a moment like calm on a lake”
–Anne Carson
There was no perfection
and no calm
but there was a lake
and he turned to her
Do you know what you’re doing?
and she said yes
though deep in her virginity
she knew nothing
but what she wanted
and that—
twenty years later
when again she answered
yes, she said, yes
in a room somewhere
in New York City
where there was no lake
and no calm
only the perfection
of his body—champagne
it was
in the light
coming through
the slats of the blinds.
A beauty mark
there.
2.
“he can hear her choosing another arrow now from the little quiver”
–Anne Carson
She chose a sharp one
more a dart
dipped in love potion
to send through the mail
how many now
for twenty years.
A little sting
until he answered
to remind him
without saying
how he once
suddenly
gathered her up
to him
.
and how at five
when all hope
fell out of the day
she’d watch him
go, his back
never turning
although
he must have
felt the sting
of her longing
burning there
all the way
down the street.
3.
“you could dress this wound
by what shines from it”
–Anne Carson
There was a wound
isn’t there
always with love
but this
a real one
ripping open
her hand
that surrendered
itself over
to his gladly
gladly for
the burn
of the green soap
his scrubbing
to get the gravel
out, leaving her
a scar she
cherished for
seventy years
for she had fallen
there where he had
hurt her / touched her.
4.
“An ideal wine grape
is one that is easily crushed.”
–Anne Carson
It’s only a crush her friend said.
For her whole life?
So she took it
like a purple grape
crushed for wine
that day
by the Hudson
glittering behind them
all heat
and summer dazzle
for didn’t they
belong to summer
twenty years before?
So she drank it in
drunk on all of it–
but when
he lifted her
high on his chest
and up in the air
his laughter
and joy of her
in his arms
at last at last
she traded
the little left
of her peace
to hold that day
whole and un-
crushable
and yes,
alive
even after he died
(she learned later
on the internet).
5.
“I had given up hope I grew desperate why did you take so long”
–Anne Carson
She dreamt of him
intermittently
every couple of years
a dry spell
then suddenly
here comes
another. The
hot wire that
ran through her life
those dreams. Five
maybe six in all.
Each a desperate
search for him.
Each getting
closer
until the last
when she was
87 and he
suddenly turned
fitting his face–
still young–into
her cupped hands
as if it were
home, a place
to stay. There
finally.
~~~~
Copyright 2025 Alice Friman. First published in Innisfree. Included in Vox Populi by permission of the author.
Alice Friman’s many collections of poetry include On the Overnight Train: New and Selected Poems (LSU, 2024). She lives in Georgia.
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And somehow memory and longing mingle in the mind while reading this poem to forever return to warm summer nights and scent of jasmine while I wonder where that came from, the knowing never quite seen behind fog of time.
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Lovely, Barb. Thanks!
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These beautiful love poems with their short lines allowing multiple small pauses and turns have a breathlessness that left me so satisfied at each poem end and especially by the sequence’s end. Emotionally so true to a lifelong love that outlived the beloved, or his presence. Wonderful reading experience!
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Spot on, Mary. I hadn’t been aware of the effect of the short lines, but you are so right.
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Yes, this kind of everlasting love happens. And it stays unreal, effervescent, an ever retreating memory until it’s written into existence. And Alice Freeman has done it justice.
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So magnificent. And the way it ends reached so deep inside. It stirred the depths.
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Exactly!
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Ah, yes. That little scar. That cherished pain…
What a poem!
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The poem captures a sixty year love affair that happened largely in the mind of the woman, with just enough reality to keep it alive.
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A stunning poem. Alice Friman is a master.
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She certainly is.
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Ah hope. A portrait of young love, but also of a hopeful spirit returning to that love, all the way to 87.
I like the Anne Carson frame for the poem. It always raises the question of whether she found the Carson quotes, and then wrote the poem around them, or they came as touchstones for what she was going to say. Strangely, this reminds of W.G. Sebald’s methodology when writing his fabulous novels, of finding old photos in junk shops, arranging them, and then writing a novel to illustrate his fantasy of what they might mean. Wonder if that was Friman’s method here? Mystery upon mystery.
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Wow.
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Ah life, how it teases and touches and taunts and haunts and hurts and finally gives us all it has to give. This is lovely.
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A masterly portrait of young love….
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