Several Reproaches to First Love
It’s like the story of Polish poetry.
In the anthology starting with
Milosz, Szymborska, Różewicz and Herbert
nobody else has a chance to say anything memorable:
excessive evolutionism,
brief postmodernism,
petty sentimentality.
And then
how to explain to your children
that they are not children of your great love,
that they do not carry the genes of gratitude.
How to admit
that you’ve missed your life in an attempt to forget
because love had been so close and coincident with you,
that you’ve needed a different tongue to keep from talking about it.