Dare (from Poetry)

Nate Klug

Not, this time, to infer

but to wait you out

between regret and parking lot

somewhere in the day

like a dare

Salt grime and the foodcarts’

rising steam, at Prospect St. a goshawk

huge and aloof, picking at something,

nested in twigs and police tape

for a while we all

held our phones up

It is relentless, the suddenness

of every other

song, creature, neighbor

as though this life

would prove you

only by turning into itself

Comment:

It almost was a love poem. Not a healthy love poem. “Wait you out between regret and parking lot” sounds like a stalker; “infer” implies just how little a beloved might have thought of a lover. Not even a firm “no, get away from me.”

This time things are different. The speaker’s worldview has to enlarge. His is only “like” a dare. The goshawk made the real dare. He’ll wait between “regret and parking lot” forever, with no regret and the pickings of the street. He’ll eat, he’ll survive, he won’t care. The speaker is no animal. He’s not cut out to so simply resolve inference through sheer will. “Salt grime” and “foodcarts” have an inference of their own. We try to break ice so we can continue moving. We consume food quickly for the same purpose. And there are those struggling to make a living who need to work those foodcarts, others who sleep on those salty streets. The goshawk is inhuman; good for it. It’s an awe we’d never wish a human could produce.

“Every other song” – the speaker’s tune has changed. Something like this actually happened to me, once. Minus any hint of being stalker. A woman who knew I loved her for her mind didn’t give a damn about me. The awareness of the real sufferings of others did require an intermediate step – hence, “song, creature, neighbor.” For me, it wasn’t seeing myself mirrored in an animal that was way more independent and far less pathetic. And the result wasn’t as dramatic as the speaker’s transformation:

as though this life

would prove you

only by turning into itself

Life proves you. As the original dare required two, as the humanity of the streets was almost lost to the world, life itself in being its harshness makes us, the other. I’d say more, but there are more relentless, sudden songs to report.