On the white couch
we smoked grass in the dark.
Slowly I started to speak.
You need to learn, she said,
to become a man who listens.
And I saw him there in the shadows
in the corner by the stereo
wearing a reed skirt
and peering like a bushman
from the amplifier bulb.
And what does a man who listens want,
she asked, and I didn’t know.
What does a man who listens want?
What does a man who listens want?
I looked toward the red, glistening eye
of the one who listens.
He wants to listen, I said.
No, she answers, no —
stressing every word —
the man who listens
wants a conversation.
And why is that? she asked.
And I waited for her to tell me.
Because the man who listens wants
to be a man in conversation. And again:
the man who listens wants
to be a man in conversation.
At once I agree.
And what sort of conversation? she asked.
I didn’t answer.
An Eastern dialogue?
A Western dialogue?
Socratic? she asked.
I wavered. An Eastern dialogue…
No, she said, a Socratic dialogue.
Yes, I said,
that’s what I’ve really wanted,
a Socratic dialogue,
but I wasn’t sure.
And two years later
on that last night, in March, in Montauk,
during our final joint together,
as we argued (over whether
or not to turn the music off
along with the flickering screen
and look in silence at the ocean)
she said to me sadly
I see you’ve completely forgotten
what you’d learned
about the man who listens —
and I no longer have the strength
to teach you again from the start.
Why? I said, I’m prepared to learn.
And she spoke and spoke
and repeated what she’d said
over and over,
and I grew quiet, and she calmed down,
and I became a man who listens
and would listen to her no more.