Poetry Corner Monday

I have a thing for the last line of a poem. I could love every sound, every punctuation mark in every stanza, but if the last line doesn't cause some sort of shift in the tectonics of my mind, I'm disenchanted.

I read this poem, by Dorianne Laux, then read it again, and again after that. I was so enamored of the way it ended that it didn't even occur to me that the poem might continue onto the next page. I typed it out, posted it, then settled back down with the book only to discover once I turned the page that there were six more lines I hadn't seen. I have to say, after falling so quickly in love with what I thought was the final perfect sentence, I was more than a little disappointed with the actual ending. I'm posting the poem anyway, though, because I do still love the sentiment. Let me know after you read it if you agree that it would have been stronger had Laux ended with "loving them / for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved."

Antilamentation

from The Book of Men

Regret nothing. Not the cruel novels you read

to the end just to find out who killed the cook, not

the insipid movies that made you cry in the dark,

in spite of your intelligence, your sophistication, not

the lover you left quivering in a hotel parking lot,

the one you beat to a punch line, the door or the one

who left you in your red dress and shoes, the ones

that crimped your toes, don't regret those.
Not the nights you called god names and cursed
your mother, sunk like a dog in the living room couch,
chewing your nails and crushed by loneliness.
You were meant to inhale those smoky nights
over a bottle of flat beer, to sweep stuck onion rings
across the dirty restaurant floor, to wear the frayed
coat with its loose buttons, its pockets full of struck matches.
You've walked those streets a thousand times and still
you end up here. Regret none of it, not one
of the wasted days you wanted to know nothing,
when the lights from the carnival rides
were the only stars you believed in, loving them
for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved.
You've traveled this far on the back of every mistake,
ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house
after the TV set has been pitched out the window.
Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied of expectation.
Relax. Don't bother remembering any of it. Let's stop here,
under the lit sign on the corner, and watch all the people walk by.