DIFFERENT KINDS OF SADNESS
to E.A.H.
Sometimes a friend can save your life,
as when you drove in from Albuquerque
the day I left the man I thought would kill me.
We went to the train station and sat
among the Beaux Arts pediments and bas-reliefs
having a cocktail called the Manhattan, Kansas.
You brought a package of fresh tortillas,
some butter, some cheese—we’ll survive,
the we a sort of kindness, a kind of sadness.
The drinks were garnished
with shriveled figs instead of maraschinos,
which was a different kind of sadness.
The station was built in 1914
and no one who can remember 1914 is left.
Your eyes began to time-travel
behind your white-rimmed glasses
and I knew you were thinking about your son.
The lives we have chosen not to live
are enough to fill the whole day’s train
with ghosts and ghosts and ghosts.
But there are also people
who have known you forever,
which is yet another kind of sadness
because you’ve only just met.
JENNY MOLBERG
