History was once written to instruct or
persuade. The church has taught us well.
This is how to be a good king. And an ars historica
is what two friends speak, over wine. So let us
describe this evening in a constructive style.
The man was happy with how the woman
listened and the closeness between them was
enough. Now you can take from this a lesson
on how to be a good woman. Love one man
wholly and learn not to grieve over what you can
never give others. We will leave the friend
unnamed. After all, who wants sources? No one
liked the first cited history, unoriginal, uninterpreted
and lacking in purpose to color the facts. It was gray
outside, cold, and the friend went away. She stayed,
facing the café window a while. Here’s how
to see it: All the people out there, heads bowed
into the winter, did not look at what they passed
because they had already determined the conclusion
at which they wanted to arrive. The way it should
appear, as it is depicted, is that all of us now
are heading toward something better. Is that not
how history would have it? We will illustrate
the walkers’ forward strides. We will excise
the way the woman glances at a new face,
then grooms her hair, that gesture of pausing
and pushing back.
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Rose McLarney’s collection of poems, The Always Broken Plates of Mountains, was published by Four Way Books. She has received a number of awards and fellowships for her work, which has appeared in the Kenyon Review, Orion, Slate, New England Review, Painted Bride Quarterly and dozens of other journals. Rose earned her MFA from Warren Wilson’s MFA Program for Writers and currently is assistant professor of poetry at Oklahoma State University.
