From "Aubade with Attention to Pathos II."
There’s an airport & then there’s The Airport
From Which He Called Me On Our Second Anniversary
To Say He Couldn’t Love Me & Would Never Marry Me Ever.
At some gate there’s a specifically culpable airplane he was on for 12 hours, no contact.
There’s another woman & then there’s The Woman
I Knew He Would Leave Me For, there in a hotel with him—
there to soothe him, to believe, as I did, in redemptive sadness.
There’s regret & then there’s being so angry at myself
that I drove all night until I found the water & walked into it, March lakewater
gray & stinging. Muscovy ducks in the shallows, their strange low muttering.
When I first read this part, I immediately fell in love with it. I started sharing it to all my friends, it was quite silly. "Look! look! look at the way she says 'there's an airport and then there's The Airport'! It's so clever!". God look at how she views this other woman, I'm pretty sure she feels pity for her more than anything else. I also really like the last line, "Muscovy ducks in the shallows, their strange low muttering." It gives me a very eerie vibe, and I think it really captures the mood of the poem. I also like how she uses the word "muttering" to describe the ducks, it makes it seem like they're almost human, like they're whispering secrets to each other.