Imeros, Page 2

would imagine that it wasn't something that he found very sad, either. I think you find it sad now because you're starting to wonder about what people will think of you when you're gone."

  "Well, yeah. Isn't that typically the way things go after someone dies unexpectedly? The people left behind are left with a lot of questions."

  "Listen, honestly, I think Gary was a pretty content guy. He never struck me as the kind of person who spent a whole hell of a lotta time reflecting on his legacy."

  "I guess not. It's just got me thinking about the things we leave behind."

  "So, this is about you?"

  "No, not entirely. It's about all of us, really. Think about it. What's Gary left behind? How will he be remembered?"

  "What do you mean? He's got a wife, a son, and probably a couple thousand students who learned almost everything they know about English poetry from Gary. I can think of more bleak scenarios."

  "Yeah, I guess."

  "What do you think you're going to leave behind?"

  "The same things as Gary, I suppose—minus the son."

  "Oh, come on, Jacob. Are you kidding? You have collections of poetry out there—successful collections. There are poems from Imeros that will live on for decades in anthologies. And the book still sells, right?"

  "Yeah, but who wants their life's legacy to revolve around something they did in their twenties?"

  "It didn't seem to bother Keats."

  "Yeah, but he died in his twenties. He didn't have the rest of his life to reflect on it."

  "So, once you're dead you won't know the difference, either. Do you think Gary's sweating his legacy right now?"

  "No, but I'm not dead yet."

  "No. Not yet."

  "How would you feel if you knew your best work was behind you?"

  "You have an embarrassment of riches, Jacob. Imeros may be one of the most popular volumes of poetry written in the past twenty-five years, and you still find reasons to complain. I would kill to have created something as highly regarded as that—twenty years ago or not."

  "Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining about the success of Imeros. I'm saying that I wish I felt that I could work on something that felt as important as that again. I wish I could remember what it feels like to be that inspired."

  "Why can't you?"

  "I just can't. Believe me, it's not for lack of trying. All my other collections have been, let's face it, lesser works. They're clearly not as effortless to read as Imeros, and they certainly weren't as effortless to write."

  "None of us are as inspired as we were twenty years ago. Naturally cynicism becomes more a part of our lives."

  "Yeah, but see, that's exactly what I'm getting at. I can't believe that cynicism is an inevitable consequence of aging. If I believe that then it is difficult for me to go on. If I accept cynicism then I've already abandoned poetry, and then there is no searching for something true anymore, nothing left for me to desire."

  "So, how do you get back that desire?"

  "That's the question."

  "I don't know, Jacob. This sounds an awful lot like the beginnings of a mid-life crisis to me."

  "I know it does, but I think that's just the cynicism again. We're socially programmed to denigrate any idealism at our age, but I can't continue to just sit in my office everyday feeling like I've got nothing left to say. I can't believe that there's nothing left in my life. One thing I do know, though, is that there's nothing left for me to chase—except this. That great uncertainty of youth, that cluelessness where hope exists, has been gone for so long that I can't remember what it feels like to feel something that intensely. I desperately want to know what it is to be hungry again."

  "How do you think Rachael would feel if she heard you saying this?"

  "She might be hurt by it, but, mostly, I think she's a realist. So, I don't think she'd question the veracity of my needs, or my feelings of inadequacy. She might also worry that I was going through some kind of mid-life episode, but she knows that I've been floundering. It would be impossible to live with me and not know it. I've been a different person these past couple of years. I haven't been able to work on anything at all for months, and I haven't made a secret of how much it's been bothering me."

  "So, how do you start working again?"

  "I need to find that place in myself that I've lost. I need to wake up that place I was in when I wrote Imeros. I found it once. I have to believe I can find it again."

  "Yes, but you found it because you found a girl."

  "Right."

  "And then you lost the girl."

  "Right."

  "So, you need a girl."

  "Maybe."

  "A muse."

  "Well, the word muse presupposes roles that I'm not quite comfortable presupposing. I feel like it belittles the emotion of the relationship, makes it about the work more than about the people. And it's pretentious as hell."

  "Well, call it whatever you like, but you're saying that you think you need someone to bring back a part of yourself that you've lost."

  "Exactly."

  "That shouldn't take long."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Look around you, Jacob. We are surrounded by young, beautiful women everyday. We live in a college town, work on campus, teach in classrooms. Things may be quiet right now, but spring break will be over next week, and then you'll have ample opportunities to find inspiration. Maybe you need to start looking."

  "No, that's crazy. I'm not going to make a move on one of my students. Besides, I have no intention of having an affair. I love Rachael. I just want to know what it's like to desire something again, to chase the unattainable."

  "No one said anything about an affair. I'm just saying that maybe you should open the door to some harmless flirtations. If you open your eyes to it, you'll see that they're looking at you. I mean, you're still something of a celebrity in the English dept. Imeros has probably been read by every co-ed that takes your classes, and these are the kinds of girls who are suckers for a poet."

  "But I'm probably as old as their fathers."

  "Are you kidding? That's the point. There isn't a single college-aged girl that doesn't have father issues."

  "You're a sick man, David."

  "Maybe, but, as you said, you're not dead yet. Maybe, it's time you start acting like you know it."

  Sidney Bichet's clarinet bounces and streams through the speakers of Jacob's office, and it is a nostalgic noise. Normally, this music makes him happy—the vibrancy of the sound, the joyful climbing of Bichet's clarinet—but today it leaves him empty, reminding him of all he can't reach back to, all those years behind him, years that have gotten so cloudy and impressionistic that they have gotten harder to decipher.

  He's sitting at his desk looking out the window, which is about as much as he's been accomplishing these days. He wraps his hands around a cup of coffee and stands from the desk, moves closer to the window, acknowledging that sitting at his desk doesn't make him any more likely to write. It hasn't made him any more likely to write in months.

  There is a knock at his office door.

  "Yeah?"

  "Are you working?" Rachael asks, peeking her head in the door

  "If you want to call it that."

  "Sorry about earlier. I didn't mean to leave you like that at the funeral. I had that meeting and I—"

  "No worries. I had a bite with David afterwards."

  "How are you?" she asks, moving into the office, though she stays near the door.

  "Not great, honestly. I'm still not working, and I'm starting to wonder if I've lost something vital."

  "Like what?"

  "I'm not sure, but it feels like maybe I'm missing whatever it was that used to drive me to want to write. Maybe I just don't want it as much as I used to."

  "Do you think Gary's death has made you more sensitive about not working? Sometimes we think more about what we're doing with ourselves when we lose someone close to us. Do you think you might just be rea
cting to the death of a friend?"

  "I'm sure that's part of it. But this isn't new. You know that."

  "Yeah, but you've had dry spells in the past. You always get through them."

  "I've never been this stuck though. I honestly wonder if there's any poetry left in me. Nothing feels poetic to me anymore. I'm not experiencing things the way I used to. I just don't see things the way I once did. It's like I'm looking at the world through different eyes. I'm worried that I've lost it."

  "Jacob, how could you lose poetry? It's so much a part of who you are. You teach it everyday."

  "Teaching is different. You should know that better than anyone. Just like teaching religion doesn't make you religious, teaching poetry doesn't make me a poet."

  "I suppose."

  "I just don't have any inspiration left."

  "Maybe you should give yourself a couple of days, give yourself some space. Maybe you'll see after further reflection that you're only reacting to Gary."

  "You're not hearing me. This has been going on for months. Yes, I may be in more of a panic because of Gary. Maybe his death has made me wonder how much time there is, and that everyday without poetry is another day I haven't lived the way I've always wanted to live. But this isn't about Gary. It's about me. I'm having a serious crisis."

  "OK. OK," Rachael says, and sinks into the chair that sits by the door.

  "All my muses are gone," he says.

  There is a silence that falls on the room as he turns back toward the window, and the silence goes on so long that he wonders if Rachael has left.

  "I used to be your muse," she says eventually, and he can hear the sadness in her voice.

  "I know. And I don't want to belittle what you mean to me. But it's different now. I love you,