Holy Thursday (Paul Muldoon)

Through an uninteresting tangle of events I found this page on Paul Muldoon and this poem of his.

I think I love this poem. It's basically the same as yesterday's poem with the dissolution of love with no provided reason, but I actually feel the emotions stronger in this one. No rhyme, which helps, and the extended metaphor of the waiter, for me, really underscores the emotions of the poem.

The waiter eats his meal and then undoes any indication that he had been there. He drains the wine. He wipes the bowl clean with a piece of bread. He is so clean and polite. He even bows to his empty chair and table at the end.

The poem, for the couple, kind of starts the same way. At the beginning it says, "They're kindly here, to let us linger so late" which might as well be the opening to any romantic date. We don't find out that their love is soured until halfway through the second stanza. The start is like how the waiter had undone his presence after eating. Clearly, N knew from line one that the love was askew in the relationship, but gives no indication until much later in the poem. He, almost, was trying to undo what was really happening. However, he can't, and in the second stanza he breaks from this politeness and brings out the messy details of his relationship.

But I have to wonder, same for the waiter, who exactly, is the show/the polite act for? Two strangers? A bunch of anonymous readers? Probably the answer for both cases is simply himself. So, if that's the case then the waiter and N are more or less the same, and I get why the emotions are stronger in this one than in yesterday's. The poem simply goes into greater detail about what N is feeling.

Favorite line: "The waiter swabs his plate with bread/And drains what's left of his wine"