The Only Conversation

“It is the first experience you ever had of reading a decent poem: ‘Oh, somebody else is lonely, too!’” Mary Ruefle writes in her lecture “On Secrets.” Her account is equally fitting to describe certain later and repeat encounters; it’s precisely the response I have each time I read Ben Purkert’s “The Only Conversation.” As I drop into the exchange between boat and tide described in the title, I can’t help but hear the title’s “only” as a fractured “lonely”—the broken-off “l” floating somewhere just out of reach. Reading the poem, I wonder: Does the use of “only” to describe a conversation temper its particular loneliness, or amplify it? After all, conversation—unlike, say, solitude, a form whole unto itself—requires a partner for completion. The tide consoles, and the boat “looks away / in a distant time / on a distant shore.” Still, as remote as the interlocutors may be from one another, the boat and tide together fulfill the promised form. “Oh, somebody else is lonely, too,” I imagine the tide thinking of the boat as it dispenses its solace: “I’m here / now don’t worry.” Here there’s still something left to lose—the company, as distant as it is; the consolation, as flawed. Which is to say: There is still something left to cherish. The poem reminds me that this imperfect togetherness is all there is. But indeed, it is: “the boat listens / with both oars / in the water.” Let this be enough. 

– Claire Schwartz

The Only Conversation 

look how the tide
lifts the boat by 
consoling it 
saying I’m here
now don’t worry 
the boat nods 
then looks away 
in a distant time 
on a distant shore 
this is how 
the world goes 
says the tide 
the boat listens 
with both oars 
in the water