What Narcissism Means to Me

I didn't love all the poems in this collection, but there were a few real gems. America and Argentina are terrific, and I see them reprinted fairly often. I loved this one, there were two great poems about November in this collection.

Catechism for November

In the movie theater one night, you whispered,
‘It is easier to watch than to live,'
and on the street outside, you thought,'
If this was a book, I would skip this part.'

Remember when you opened the fortune cookie in March?
It said, ‘Ideology is bad for you.'
Remember when you called Anabelle
‘an encyclopedia of self-perpetuating pain?'

On Tuesday you said, ‘I'm a small wooden boat,
adrift in the space between storms,'
and on Wednesday you said, ‘I should go to the park more often.'

Then you killed the spider with the heel of your shoe,
and said, ‘I can't take care of all sentient beings!'

But when the girl with pink hair brought her sniffles to class,
you found a Kleenex in your purse for her.

This is how it happens: one at a time,
the minutes come out of the box where they were hidden:
the witty ones with yellow feathers;
the thick gray ones with no horizon.

But once you swore, ‘I want to see it all, unsentimentally.'
Once you wrote in your green notebook,
‘Let me start in the middle, again.'