Donate or Join | Boston Review

A Political and Literary Forum

Menu Search
Donate Shop Join
Two Poems

Arts in Society

Two Poems

June 21, 2019

Jacques J. Rancourt

Jun 21, 2019

Jacques, from Jacob, Renamed Israel, which Means, in Hebrew, He Who Wrestles God
 
Standing before it in Paris
in the fourth month of our long-distance
 
a morning after I’d slept,
I could see what Delacroix meant
 
about his fresco, the one where Jacob
wrestles the angel, when he wrote
 
that it represents torment—
how he, like Jacob
 
the night before fording
the Jabboq river, was alone—
 
whereas I might have argued
at a different time
 
that because of how Jacob’s tunic is torn
down & off, how their fingers
 
in upraised hands
are interlocked, or how he leans his head
 
against another man’s body,
even the not-body of an angel,
 
that this fresco represents the push-pull
of sexual pursuit—except
 
that pleasure is brief,
it is fleeting, so you could
 
never look at this painting & think
it had anything to do with sex,
 
or so I decided, standing before it in Paris
in the fourth month of our long-distance
 
the morning after I’d slept
with somebody else.
 
 
 
The Mayfly
 
And afterwards, the drive between
your apartment and his is a dry tunnel
 
through an otherwise wet hill. He held
the deflated balloon of yourself
 
in his semen-sheened hand
while he told you, naked and blue
 
in his blue-lit room, that you
are his only friend in the Bay.
 
But it’s like this: you’ve met up
just four times and always
 
for sex, and by next week,
he won’t return your texts.
 
Not all forms of love
are made to last. Take the mayfly
 
that lives the hour required
to mate. Take these city lights,
 
prismatic and star-stoned, that honeycomb
across your beaded windshield.
 
The lonely animal of yourself
met the lonely animal of himself
 
for only a few moments cut shimmering
out of time, or in time, or from time
 
to time, and it is almost enough for you
for whom nothing is ever quite.
 

While we have you...

...we need your help. Confronting the many challenges of COVID-19—from the medical to the economic, the social to the political—demands all the moral and deliberative clarity we can muster. In Thinking in a Pandemic, we’ve organized the latest arguments from doctors and epidemiologists, philosophers and economists, legal scholars and historians, activists and citizens, as they think not just through this moment but beyond it. While much remains uncertain, Boston Review’s responsibility to public reason is sure. That’s why you’ll never see a paywall or ads. It also means that we rely on you, our readers, for support. If you like what you read here, pledge your contribution to keep it free for everyone by making a tax-deductible donation.

Donate Today

June 21, 2019

       

Sign Up for Our Newsletter

Vital reading on politics, literature, and more in your inbox

Love Boston Review?

Then you’ll love our new membership program! Join us to support engaged discussion on critical issues. You’ll also enjoy exclusive membership benefits.
Get Started

More In Arts in Society

A Request

Tess Liem

Caring in Viral Times

Michael McColly

Museums and Mourning in COVID-19

Jackson Davidow

Reading Camus in Time of Plague and Polarization

Mugambi Jouet

Untangling Fiction and Reality in the Balkans

Daniel Petrick

The Kindreds

Meredith Stricker

Witnessing Grace

Eric Morales-Franceschini

Return to the Gay Underground

David B. Hobbs

Poet of the Impossible: Paul Celan at 100

Peter E. Gordon

Copyright © 1993-2021 Boston Review and its authors.

Support Boston Review

Become a Member

Make a tax-deductible donation today

Boston Review Printing Note: For best printing results try turning on any options your web browser's print dialog makes available for printing backgrounds and background graphics.