the poet by Paul Maliszewski
I’ll take them, the poet said. Thank you. The salesman asked the poet how he would like to pay for his shoes today, and the poet handed him a card. Credit, he said. The salesman then went through some intricately choreographed motions involving the cash register, the poet’s credit card, a pen, and a small sticker he affixed to the side of the shoebox. He was like a machine. No movement was wasted, no energy expended senselessly. Are these shoes by any chance going to be part of that sale? the poet asked. The salesman looked up, his trance broken. He had to think for a second, to focus on the question. They’re not, he said. Sorry. And then he went right back to work. In the car, on the way home, the poet told his wife about his exchange with the salesman. I mean, did you catch how many shoes he brought me? he asked her. I’m sure they train them all to do that, she said. I know, the poet said, but I just felt so embarrassed. He must have thought you looked like someone who works in an office, the poet’s wife said. That’s not an insult, you know. The poet said he felt—he wasn’t sure how he felt, exactly. He searched around for some word. I felt this deep shame, he told his wife. I wish I hadn’t, believe me, but there it is. His wife told him it was all right. The guy was just trying to sell some shoes, she said. He probably brings out extras for everybody who walks in there. The poet said in a weird way he sort of wished he was the man the salesman figured him for. From the backseat, the baby cried. Out, he said. Out. God, he hates that car seat, the poet’s wife said. Out, out, the baby said. The poet twisted in his seat and craned his neck to check on the baby. Mommy and Daddy can’t let you out right now, he said. We’re going straight home, though, OK? And then we’ll let you out, all right? Out, the baby said. The poet turned back around in his seat. That went well, he said.
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n Saturday and Sunday, when the baby went down for his morning nap, the poet and his wife took a shower together, and they talked and they kissed and hugged under the water. Sometimes they made plans while they showered, mapping out the day to come, but often they talked about whatever. One time, the poet’s wife said, I wish there was a new food, something I’ve never eaten before. Her comment came out of nowhere. She had, she said, just been thinking. The poet loved such nonsense, the light stuff barely more substantial than air, stuff that didn’t try too hard. It meant everything to him. There was an ease to it, a comfort. He could, he knew,
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exchange such nonsense with her for the remainder of his life. Don’t you ever wish you had a new food? the poet’s wife asked him. He wasn’t sure. I never really have cravings, he said. Not for food, anyway. In the shower, talking like this, with no real aim, the poet could start to feel he was getting away with something, but he was only relaxing. At some point, relaxing had started to feel wrong, gnawed away at by the many things that needed doing instead. It was during one of their showers that the poet’s wife asked him what he was thinking, and he told her nothing, really. It’s embarrassing, he said. That’s OK, she told him. He had been thinking, he said, taking a breath then, about how once he had supposedly been a promising poet and how that meant something, even though he told himself at the time it was meaningless and ridiculous and then swore he would go on writing regardless. Sorry, he added, I’m just in a mood, I guess. Once, the poet’s wife said. You say it like you’re talking about ancient history. I’m serious, the poet said. I mean, how long, realistically, can one remain quote-unquote promising? At what point does the promise become something never kept? The poet’s wife tilted her head into the water and rinsed the shampoo from her hair. She pulled her hair back and wrung it and then opened her eyes. You worry too much, she said. She leaned in for a hug and wrapped her arms around the poet so hard that he gasped. Anyway, she said, you’re the promise. You can’t just break that. The poet said he supposed so, but he wasn’t sure. It sounds sort of corny, he added. Doesn’t it? A little? The poet’s wife shrugged her shoulders. She didn’t care about corny. The poet wondered sometimes if the entirety of his education, all the books and all the classes, the seminars and presentations, taught him little except how to detect trace amounts of corniness, just a few noxious parts per million, and then he wondered what the point of that was, finally, to be so sensitive to what was just a little bit corny.
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riends who came over to see the baby often asked when the poet and his wife were going to get started on the next baby. Friends said, That baby’s going to need a brother, right? Or perhaps a younger sister, someone to look out for? Usually it seemed like a joke, so the poet just laughed it off. They weren’t ready, he and his wife. He wasn’t sure when they would be ready either, or if they would ever be. They were barely managing as it was.