Winifred Arriving at Heaven's LobbyYou come to us no more than gland, wantingthe odor of comfort. A frill around your voice. Some trouble in the throat. On the crook of our arm, you are safely blind. Settle here in your own wheelchair. Let us speak in the language of menials: the helmeted virtues, poverty bread, discipline without cause. Disarrangement and one good coat—stand up. We will help you into it. Because your wardrobe was taken and driven away in the trunks of cars; because your golf clubs were set on the walk, your collected wigs on the lawn; because your bed is not your own— let us speak to you of hoarded fire, the body's consolation. You are backed into night and will go no further until after a long time. For you who rely on sound alone, we examine your room for noises, the close approach of the witless. Do not prevent us. All we see is damage where before, there was nothing to break.
Here it is again: that annual Rubik’s cube of a collection we rush to buy, eager to hold each poem to the light, to turn it this way and that before skipping around aimlessly and then closing the book in resigned bafflement, placing it next to the other unsolved collections in this series. Next year, will we rush to buy it again? It’s a yearly tradition, this snuffed prelude to Christmas where every poem is opened in hope and discarded in despair. No book of poetry raises so much expectation—and lets us down so hard. The Best American Poetry is the Best American Paradox we have; from its title, to its foreword, to the content itself.
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