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  • The Perfect Life, and: Plenty, and: What Men Want, and: On the Airplane, and: The Mistaken
  • Stephen Dunn (bio)

Because it was in the future, it always existedand asked of us, I thought, only to wishourselves toward it, and record what we saw,its flora and architecture and scud-free sky.And I, for one, found this to be possible,and wished myself further into it,so far that I heard it asking me to tell othersabout the evils of industry,and how it might feel to have our desiresmatched, then satisfied, every day of our lives.

The perfect life was never quite present,so could never be faulted, and seemedto keep just enough of its promisesto keep me committed. In this way it resembledone of those beautiful strangersmade of smoke and thin air, the lovely troubleI've often foreseen, but still wanted to lie down with.

I remember how often I forgave its intolerances,and once, when I realized its agenda was to excludeevery other version of a perfect life, I excused itas a necessary sacrifice on the road to fulfillment.Later on—oh the perfect life doesn't like the soundof history—later on, amid the regret, the heartbreak—amid such words I now permitted myself to say,

I nevertheless remember a clearing by a river,the camaraderie there, the small fires and the dancing,and looking up into the lambency of the nighthow I believed that all of it was ours. [End Page 174]

Plenty

Chelsea, 2006

All afternoon, witnessing loopy splashes of colorin one gallery, what seemed like someone'shieroglyphics to himself in another,the huge often in cahoots with the minimal,and everywhere a terrible strain to be different,

I understood why men like me tend not to goto gatherings where people display their psychesand show off their piercings. In short, I felt likea conservative, and a smug one at that.I began to long for still lifes, shadow-filled,

apples and pears bruised just right by someonewho also liked geometry, or for some darkand brutal Caravaggio, or one of those Hopperswhere a woman, apparently stunnedby the night before, is staring out a window.

Outside, dusk was vying with sunlight,the gray buildings on 9th Avenue yieldingevery second to a different shade of gray. Lovely,I thought, then found myself wishingfor some swirl of Matisse-like gaiety.

Oh, it was clear I needed to abandon the selfI'd brought with me, that inveterate spoil-sport,the way an early surrealist must have abandonedthe well-trained good boy in himselfto enjoy the desecration of a rose.

An old feeling: What a good time I might be havingif only I could have left myself home.But there I was, walking to the subway, [End Page 175] artless, empty handed, still largely in lovewith my prejudices. The beggar at the foot

of the stairs looked like a detail from a Bruegel.I gave him some change, and made my way downto the Uptown side where many years before—when I lived to be surprised—I'd watched a manwith a guitar sing while his monkey danced.

What Men Want

Among the powerless,unable to stop the ache that cameafter someone else got the jobor the raise, my father just wanteda little respect, some affirmation,not always to be ruledby the clock. My brother, too,

good man unequippedto seize a day or leave a jobwhere everyone yelled,brought the yelling homethe way others bring bread.How else to makehis presence felt? And I,

in my chosen, happy tormentof words, spend entire dayscutting, stitching, rearranging,trying to do what it takes [End Page 176] to be properly heard. Other daysI speak about books I love.I feel like an escapee,one big step ahead of my past.

Now I can afford to buy a ticketto someplace else.Now I can choose not to go.Sometimes a man wantsbecause he discovers he can have.

No doubt this...

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