John Grey
Disappointment Poem
I didn’t know
disappointment had a door.
I didn’t imagine
it could close behind me.
I never realized
it had this one tricky maneuver
where a body spins around itself,
turns back at the same time
it’s moving forward.
Who’d have thought that,
in disappointment’s parlance,
a hand could reach back
and be about to knock
while a leg stretched forward
so its feet were
almost out the gate.
Damn, I didn’t know disappointment
had a gate either,
that it too could close behind me,
even as it made me feel as if
there was some of me left behind,
at that door,
fist raised,
half-convinced it could
pummel its way back in.
And then my car was waiting
with another unsuspected door,
one more that couldn’t quite enclose me,
some of me still fingering
with the gate latch,
some of me still wondering
should I knock.
And surprise, surprise,
disappointment had a car,
tank full of gas,
and miles on it.
And so I drove and drove,
disappointment in the rear-view mirror,
disappointment in my headlights.