After the Point of No Return

By David Wagoner

"Wagoner's words are a living link to the world, enacting it so vitally that they feel like natural facts."The Seattle Times

In his twenty-fourth book of poetry, David Wagoner reflects on youth, love, regret, and expectation versus reality. Here a master writes at top form, back-dropped by life's curious moments and imagining Jesus as an untidy roommate or considering our final destination in "Beginner's Guide to Death."

"After the Point of No Return"

After that moment when you've lost all reason
for going back where you started, when going ahead
is no longer a Yes or No, but a matter of fact,
you'll need to weigh, on the one hand, what will seem,
on the other, almost nothing against something

slightly more than nothing and must choose
again and again, at points of fewer and fewer
chances to guess, when and which way to turn.

That's when you might stop thinking about stars
and storm clouds, the direction of wind,
the difference between rain and snow, the time
of day or the lay of the land, about which trees
mean water, which birds know what you need
to know before it's too late, or what's right here
under your feet, no longer able to tell you

where it was you thought you had to go.

David Wagoner is the author of two dozen books of poetry and ten novels. A longtime teacher at University of Washington, he was the editor at Poetry Northwest. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
• Release date: May 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781619320079

Book preview

1

After the Point of No Return

After that moment when you’ve lost all reason

for going back where you started, when going ahead

is no longer a yes or no but a matter of fact,

you’ll need to weigh, on the one hand, what will seem

on the other, almost nothing against something

slightly more than nothing and must choose

again and again, at points of fewer and fewer

chances to guess, when and which way to turn.

That’s when you might stop thinking about stars

and storm clouds, the direction of wind,

the difference between rain and snow, the time

of day or the lay of the land, about which trees

mean water, which birds know what you need

to know before it’s too late, or what’s right here

under your feet, no longer able to tell you

where it was you thought you had to go.

A Brief History

A poet writes the history of his body.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU, THE JOURNAL

Where it went, what it came back to,

where and why it laid itself down

and tried to sleep, what happened to it

without advice or consent,

what it failed at, how it disobeyed

its own commands to no purpose,

what it held in its hands when it was told

and told to let go, what it neglected

to open its arms for, how it wouldn’t

stand still, not even when it might as well

have had no legs at all

to be running away with, or the times

when it would sit and wait

without knowing what it was waiting for

in places where it didn’t belong,

how it broke down, how

but not why it made marks again

and again on pieces of paper.

The Ends of My Fingers

I was listening to the man

on the radio plucking strings

with his fingers and fingernails

and telling us how to play.

I was holding the open doors

of our upright cabinet

and feeling so full of music

I lift ed my whole body,

and the radio toppled toward me

and slammed me to the floor.

The edge cut off the ends

of two of my right fingers.

My mother, who could sing

and play on the piano,

carried me in her arms

through the bleeding living room,

through the front door and down

the steps while we both sang

a song I’d never heard,

across our yard to the house

where the old doctor lived,

where I sat in his lap, where my mother

gave him the two red ends,

and then we went on singing

while he clamped them on again

and wrapped them out of sight.

He told me not to look

inside or try to find out

what color they might be.

He said he’d open them

like a present with his fingers

next week when I was three.

The Fun House

You’re supposed to go inside. They’re showing you

how to get up the steps and through the door

into a narrow hallway where it’s dark,

where someone’s laughing over a loudspeaker.

Whoever’s holding your hand lets go of it.

You put one shoe ahead of another shoe

to show you remember how. What looks like a window

has a doorknob on it that turns and turns and turns

when you turn it, but doesn’t work. You see somebody

scary in front of you. You both open

your mouths at the same time, and it’s you

in a mirror. The floor goes crooked. It’s jiggling.

You have to go but there’s nowhere to go.

Too many lights go on, and suddenly

go back off before you can shut your eyes.

Somebody ugly’s under a white sheet.

You’re being sick on a rug that cost good money.

Convivium

In memoriam Emily Carlson

After we’d redivided

Gaul into twenty-three parts,

our seventh-grade Latin class

in sandals and off-white togas

threw a convivium.

Over the fried chicken

our haruspex announced the signs

as bene, bene, bene,

so we pitched and proved

we could conjugate, decline,

and define some verbs and nouns

sometimes almost as well

as Miss Emily Carlson.

All fall she’d listened to us

mumble and mispronounce

with a set smile on her face

and at least one eye half closed

behind thick horn-rim glasses.

We failed her, and she passed us.

She believed we were carrying on

some semiclassical

tradition, if not for her sake,

for our own, that at least a few

of the radices she’d watered

in our poor soil wouldn’t shrivel

but would finally rise and shine.

When all our games were over

and after she’d handed out

the small edulis prizes,

wrapped and trimmed and inscribed

with her own neat, careful digits,

she shouted toward the ceiling

an exclamatio

and fell down on the floor

and began to shake, shudder,

and jitter the whole length

of her gray dress, her mouth

uttering through white foam

untranslatable words,

then died post meridiem.

Oh sunt lacrimae rerum.

Driving

You were behind

Reviews for After the Point of No Return

[esta1923 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A splendid collection of short poems. Highly personal (but universally true!).