Constancy
The best way to be
alone is to have someone
somewhere in the house.
Which means
for your solitude not to feel lonely, you need
someone else
to be alone, too.
By you, my love, I mean
me,
of course. That goes without
saying, which is to say, you and
me
forgetting each other sometimes
proves how completely
the same empty jam jar
holds us, two fireflies
scooped out of the same evening,
meeting at a knife hole in the lid
to lick the same star.
*
Amit Majmudar is a diagnostic nuclear radiologist who lives in Westerville, Ohio, with his wife and three children. The former first Poet Laureate of Ohio, he is the author of the poetry collections What He Did in Solitary and Dothead as well as two other poetry collections, four internationally acclaimed novels, an anthology of political poetry, and a translation of the Bhagavad-Gita. Awarded the Donald Justice Prize and the Pushcart Prize, Majmudar’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Best of the Best American Poetry, and the eleventh edition of The Norton Introduction to Literature. A memoir, Twin A, is forthcoming in the United States in 2022. Two novels are forthcoming in India in 2022 as well: an historical novel about the 1947 Partition entitled The Map and the Scissors, and a novel for young readers, Heroes the Color of Dust. He is currently co-creating a graphic novel/web comic, The Kali Yuga Chronicles. Visit www.amitmajmudar.com for more details.
oh! This poem! I love the metaphor, I love the sweet conversational tone, I love the reflection on loneliness vs. solitude, and I love the line breaks with isolate the me, but only in context of the whole we of the poem. Such a poem!