Happiness

 

for Bob and Nadine

 

 

He phones from Carmel,

telling me they had martinis

at the Hog’s Breath. Now

they are drinking Margaritas,

overlooking the Pacific,

waiting for the sun to set.

Their lips are salty.

 

He has lived alone

for almost two decades,

but he no longer

has to go to bed early

so he can dream more.

 

Everything is vivid:

the crystalline sky,

the golden sand,

the ring the woman wears.

He cannot remember when he has been so happy.

 

 

 

 

Arthur Winfield Knight has written film reviews for several small journals and newspapers, and a not-too-fictionalized book (Blue Skies Falling) about Sam Peckinpah, published by Forge Press in 2001. This summer, The King’s English will publish Knight’s imaginary autobiography of James Dean online; he has recently completed a novel set against the making of The Misfits.

Knight’s last book of poems (Outlaw Voices) was published by CC Marimbo Communications in 2000; his poems have appeared in a variety of places. For eighteen years he edited and published the unspeakable visions of the individual, what one librarian referred to as an annual “bookazine” about the Beats.