You Drive Me Crazy

by Mary D. Esselman

  If you're lucky, you'll experience that kind of ecstasy moment not only when you first fall in love, but throughout many years of being together. Well, maybe you won't necessarily cook naked and drunk, since life isn't always a Hollywood romantic comedy. But maybe, despite the ups and downs of long-term love, despite your most jaded and cynical inclinations, every once in a while you'll find yourself giddy with desire for your partner, grateful for the chance to “take what we love inside,” as Li-Young Lee put it, to live “from joy/to joy to joy…/from blossom to blossom to/impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.”

  I Want to Breathe

  I want to breathe

  you in I'm not talking about

  perfume or even the sweet odour

  of your skin but of the air

  itself I want to share

  your air inhaling what you

  exhale I'd like to be that

  close two of us breathing

  each other as one as that.

  JAMES LAUGHLIN

  One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII

  I DON'T LOVE YOU AS IF YOU WERE A ROSE

  I don't love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,

  or arrow of carnations that propagate fire.

  I love you as one loves certain obscure things,

  secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

  I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom but carries

  the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,

  and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose

  from the earth lives dimly in my body.

  I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,

  I love you directly without problems or pride;

  I love you like this because I don't know any other way to love,

  except in this form in which I am not nor are you,

  so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,

  so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

  PABLO NERUDA (TRANS. MARK EISNER)

  Sunday Night in the City

  Hand in hand, we lie on the bed,

  our long legs crossed like folded

  wings, our long feet touching the

  footboard in shadow, carved like a headstone

  with grapes. Your hair is ruffled, dark

  as black walnut, curled like the tendrils of

  vines. Your right hand is in my right

  hand. My left hand is in your left.

  Arms linked like skaters, we lie

  under the picture of farmland: brush

  dark and blurred as smoke, trees

  lifting their ashen fish-skeletons,

  and central to it, over us,

  the calm pond

  silent as if eternal.

  SHARON OLDS

  Variation on the Word Sleep

  I would like to watch you sleeping,

  which may not happen.

  I would like to watch you,

  sleeping. I would like to sleep

  with you, to enter

  your sleep as its smooth dark wave

  slides over my head

  and walk with you through that lucent

  wavering forest of bluegreen leaves

  with its watery sun & three moons

  towards the cave where you must descend,

  towards your worst fear

  I would like to give you the silver

  branch, the small white flower, the one

  word that will protect you

  from the grief at the center

  of your dream, from the grief

  at the center. I would like to follow

  you up the long stairway

  again & become

  the boat that would row you back

  carefully, a flame

  in two cupped hands

  to where your body lies

  beside me, and you enter

  it as easily as breathing in

  I would like to be the air

  that inhabits you for a moment

  only. I would like to be that unnoticed

  & that necessary.

  MARGARET ATWOOD

  i carry your heart with me

  i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

  my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

  i go you go, my dear;and whatever is done

  by only me is your doing, my darling) i fear

  no fate(for you are my fate, my sweet)i want

  no world(for beautiful you are my world, my true)

  and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

  and whatever a sun will always sing is you

  here is the deepest secret nobody knows

  (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

  and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

  higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

  and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

  i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

  E. E. CUMMINGS

  From Blossoms

  From blossoms comes

  this brown paper bag of peaches

  we bought from the boy

  at the bend in the road where we turned toward

  signs painted Peaches.

  From laden boughs, from hands,

  from sweet fellowship in the bins,

  comes nectar at the roadside, succulent

  peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,

  comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

  O, to take what we love inside,

  to carry within us an orchard, to eat

  not only the skin, but the shade,

  not only the sugar, but the days, to hold

  the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into

  the round jubilance of peach.

  There are days we live

  as if death were nowhere

  in the background; from joy

  to joy to joy, from wing to wing,

  from blossom to blossom to

  impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

  LI-YOUNG LEE

  Alicante

  An orange on the table

  Your dress on the rug

  And you in my bed

  Sweet present of the present

  Cool of night

  Warmth of my life.

  JACQUES PRÉVERT (TRANS. LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI)

  When Sue Wears Red

  When Susanna Jones wears red

  Her face is like an ancient cameo

  Turned brown by the age.

  Come with a blast of trumpets,

  Jesus!

  When Susanna Jones wears red

  A queen from some time-dead Egyptian night

  Walks once again.

  Blow trumpets, Jesus!

  And the beauty of Susanna Jones in red

  Burns in my heart a love-fire sharp like pain.

  Sweet silver trumpets,

  Jesus!

  LANGSTON HUGHES

  Elegie XIX:

  To His Mistress Going to Bed

  Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defie,

  Until I labour, I in labour lie.

  The foe oft-times having the foe in sight,

  Is tir'd with standing though he never fight.

  Off with that girdle, like heavens Zone glittering,

  But a far fairer world incompassing.

  Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear,

  That th'eyes of busie fooles may be stopt there.

  Unlace your self, for that harmonious chyme,

  Tells me from you, that now it is bed time.

  Off with that happy busk, which I envie,

  That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.

  Your gown going off, such beautious state reveals,

  As when from flowry meads th'hills shadowe steales.

  Off with that wyerie Coronet and shew

  The haiery Diademe which on you doth grow:

&nbs
p; Now off with those shooes, and then softly tread

  In this loves hallow'd temple, this soft bed.

  In such white robes, heaven's Angels us'd to be

  Receavd by men: thou Angel bringst with thee

  A heaven like Mahomets Paradice, and though

  Ill spirits walk in white, we easly know,

  By this these Angels from an evil sprite,

  Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.

  Licence my roaving hands, and let them go,

  Before, behind, between, above, below.

  O my America! my new-found-land,

  My kingdome, safeliest when with one man man'd,

  My Myne of precious stones: My Emperie,

  How blest am I in this discovering thee!

  To enter in these bonds, is to be free;

  Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be.

  Full nakedness! All joyes are due to thee,

  As souls unbodied, bodies uncloth'd must be,

  To taste whole joyes. Jems which you women use

  Are like Atlanta's balls, cast in mens views,

  That when a fools eye lighteth on a Jem,

  His earthly soul may covet theirs, not them:

  Like pictures, or like books gay coverings made

  For lay-men, are all women thus array'd.

  Themselves are mystick books, which only wee

  (Whom their imputed grace will dignifie)

  Must see reveal'd. Then since that I may know;

  As liberally, as to a Midwife shew

  Thy self: cast all, yea, this white lynnen hence,

  There is no pennance, much less innocence:

  To teach thee, I am naked first; why then

  What needst thou have more covering then a man.

  JOHN DONNE

  The Shipfitter's Wife

  I loved him most

  when he came home from work,

  his fingers still curled from fitting pipe,

  his denim shirt ringed with sweat,

  smelling of salt, the drying weeds

  of the ocean. I'd go to where he sat

  on the edge of the bed, his forehead

  anointed with grease, his cracked hands

  jammed between his thighs, and unlace

  the steel-toed boots, stroke his ankles

  and calves, the pads and bones of his feet.

  Then I'd open his clothes and take

  the whole day inside me—the ship's

  gray sides, the miles of copper pipe,

  the voice of the foreman clanging

  off the hull's silver ribs. Spark of lead

  kissing metal. The clamp, the winch,

  the white fire of the torch, the whistle,

  and the long drive home.

  DORIANNE LAUX

  I Want

  to shove my clothes

  to one side of the closet,

  give you the bigger half.

  Quietly I'll hide most of my shoes,

  so you won't know I have this many.

  I will

  rearrange furniture to add more,

  find space on my shelves

  for your many books,

  nail up the placard that says

  poets do it, and redo it, and do it again.

  I want

  to share a laundry basket,

  get our clothes mixed up,

  wait for the yelling

  when my reds run wild

  into your whites

  turning them a luscious pink,

  your favorite color of me.

  I will

  move my pillow

  to the other side of the bed,

  lay yours next to mine,

  your scent on the fabric

  always near me,

  even on nights you're away.

  I will

  buy a new bureau to hold your

  thousand and one black socks,

  find a place for all those work boots,

  the ones I refer to as big and ugly.

  I want

  more pots and pans to wash,

  piles of them leaning high

  from late night meals

  cooked naked and drunk,

  red wine pouring into

  a sauce of simmering

  tomatoes, garlic, and olive oil,

  kisses bitten between bites,

  and platefuls of our late hours,

  stacking up into dawn.

  I want

  to stock cupboards, closets, and pantry,

  fill the house with us.

  I want to gain weight with you because our love, our love makes me fat.

  KIM KONOPKA

  Stability

  WHEN LOVE ROLLS

  Here's what happens after you've soared to the heights of ecstasy: You fall back to earth with a jolt, landing in the muck of monotony, uncertainty, or misery. Your once glorious relationship now seems boring, disturbing, or downright disastrous.

  Unless…you drift gently down (using your nifty “mutual commitment” parachute) into the cozy nest of stability, where you and your partner share a Pottery Barn–perfect little life. Okay, maybe it's more of a Target toasty little life, but the point is, you find yourself secure and content in a trusting, loving relationship. Good-bye to the heart-thumping drama of ecstasy. Hello to stability, the couch-potato stage of love, where excitement comes in the form of doing the nightly crossword puzzle, watching the latest Fear Factor episode, or trying out the new Crock-Pot.

  Or perhaps you're sipping herbal tea together, like the couple in Katherine Mansfield's “Camomile Tea.” And guess what? It's fun! You love it! There's no place you'd rather be. In fact, you feel positively smug about this happy domesticity. “We might be fifty, we might be five,/So snug, so compact, so wise are we!” you trill to yourself, like the speaker in Mansfield's poem. Maybe you're not burning up the bedroom the way you once did, but you still have your homey moments of desire: “Under the kitchen-table leg/My knee is pressing against his knee.”

  What's more important, you think, is that you feel happily mated for life, like the couple in Donald Hall's “Valentine.” True, the speaker compares himself and his partner to a bunch of decidedly unglamorous animals—pudgy chipmunks, screeching bluebirds, and lumbering bears, all of them driven by biological need rather than romance—but his valentine brims with pure, playful love: “Hoptoads hop, but/Hogs are fatter./Nothing else but/Us can matter.”

  Besides, maybe you are fatter or plainer or more worn than the romantic ideal of, say, a Brad Pitt or a Halle Berry, but in stability you don't really care. Your partner adores you anyway, you're sure of it, just as you find his snoring a comfort instead of an annoyance. Together you're building a home, maybe a family, so there's less time for workouts and beauty sleep. Sure, his six-pack abs were hot back in the day, but to you he looks more gorgeous now—bleary-eyed and unshaven, in a tattered fleece robe, reading the Sunday papers with you or rocking the baby back to sleep. To you, he's a prince, like Henry V, who woos the princess Katherine by telling her that he may not be the most handsome (his “face is not worth sun-burning”), he may not be the most witty or glib (unlike those “fellows of infinite tongue, that can rhyme themselves into ladies' favours”), but he does have a “good heart” (which is steady like the sun, “for it shines bright and never changes”).

  Of course, you need to watch it in stability—you can get so comfortable with each other, so familiar, that you're unaware of things like (a) gradually grossing out your partner by becoming a real slob, and (b) hurting your partner's feelings by saying she/he is a real slob but you love him/her anyway. Case in point: the mistress in William Shakespeare's Sonnet 130. She's no supermodel, with her wiry hair, pasty complexion, and breath that “reeks.” Still, her lover declares: “And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare/As any she belied with false compare.” Maybe the mistress needs to pay a little more attention to her hygiene. And maybe the speaker needs to learn how not to tell his par
tner he loves her. Using eight lines to detail her thorough lack of grace and beauty, then sneaking in two lines about how he loves her anyway, isn't going to cut it. “You stink, but I love you, you huge pile of dough,” is all she's going to hear.

  No matter how long you've been together or how well you think you know each other, you still need to romance your partner, especially in stability. Don't run off and get an extreme makeover or buy into the whole red-roses-and-champagne bit. Instead, try being kind, receptive, and respectful, practicing what Henry V would call “plain and uncoined constancy.” You simply need to show your partner, often and in whatever tender, goofy way you both understand, that his or her heart is your home and that you plan to be there permanently. Like the speaker in Mark Doty's “To the Engraver of My Skin” (who is getting a tattoo), you've signed up “for whatever comes” in the relationship, even if it hurts. You want your partner to know “I'm here/for revision, discoloration; here to fade/and last.”

  That long-term, written-on-the-heart commitment is what keeps stability stable, at least for as long as both partners can honor it. While it lasts, this kind of love provides real comfort, a safe haven from the things we all fear, like loneliness and loss. If you're lucky enough to experience stability, you tend to want to cling to it, hoping it will protect you from what the speaker in Etheridge Knight's “A Love Poem” calls “the cyclops” who “peers into my cave.” Like the frostbitten houses in Donald Hall's “The Hunkering,” you want to “tighten [yourself] for darkness and/hunker down” in the warmth of your relationship.

  Still, in order to live fully in stability, you need to accept that even this secure love could be dashed any second. One of you could fall out of love. One of you could get sick. The whole world could go kerflooey. And somehow you need not to be a nervous wreck about it all—pretty hard when you're as content as you've ever been in your life.

  One solution is to try the strategy of the speaker in Linda Pastan's “An Early Afterlife.” “Why don't we say goodbye right now,” she asks her lover, “before whatever is going to happen/happens.” In other words, why not live as if every day might be the last? Not weeping with melodrama, but living gratefully and gracefully, trying to “use the loving words/we otherwise might not have time to say.” That way, “we would bask/in an early afterlife of ordinary days, impervious to the inclement weather/already in our long-range forecast./Nothing could touch us. We'd never/have to say goodbye again.”