Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Marie Howe’s "Separation" captures the disorienting experience of encountering a former lover in a public, detached setting, juxtaposing it with an intensely intimate memory. The poem begins with an ordinary scene: "Driving out of town, I see him crossing / the Brooks Pharmacy parking lot." The image is banal, mundane—a figure walking past glass windows, dressed, self-contained, an individual moving through the world. Yet this casual sighting triggers a memory that floods the poem with longing, contrast, and loss.

The memory is striking in its physicality and tenderness. The man, once an intimate partner, would "drop to his knees in the kitchen / and press his face to my dress, his cheek flat against / my belly as if he were listening for something." This description evokes not only erotic connection but also vulnerability, devotion, and dependence. His posture—kneeling—suggests a moment of surrender, as though the speaker were an object of reverence, comfort, or even sanctuary. The phrase "as if he were listening for something" deepens the mystery, implying a wordless communication, an emotional need being fulfilled through closeness.

The setting of this memory reinforces its poignancy. The domestic space—the kitchen, the dining room, the living room—suggests a past filled with warmth and presence. The mention of "somebody waiting for coffee" or "someone setting the dining room table" subtly places this moment in a larger, shared world, suggesting that their private connection coexisted with ordinary life. It was not secret, not hidden, but a part of a living, breathing relationship.

The poem then shifts abruptly back to the present: "How is it possible that I am allowed to see him like this—" The sudden awareness of distance, of seeing him from afar rather than feeling him close, is almost shocking. The speaker marvels at how this once-intimate figure now exists separately, moving through the world without her. The details of his body—his "hands swinging by his side," "his cock quiet in his jeans," "his shirt covering his shoulders," "his own tongue in his mouth"—underscore this separation. Each part of him, once known so intimately, is now enclosed, self-contained, inaccessible. Even the phrase "his own tongue in his mouth" highlights the loss; the body that once spoke, touched, and connected with the speaker is now utterly private, belonging only to itself.

The poem’s power lies in this contrast between past and present, between the deeply physical memory and the distant, untouchable reality. The lover who once pressed his face to her body, who once sought something in her presence, now simply walks past, dressed and whole, needing nothing from her. The speaker is left only with the realization of this shift, the stunning clarity of what separation truly means—not just absence, but the startling fact that someone who was once so close can now exist independently, as though the intimacy never was.

"Separation" is a poem of quiet devastation. It captures how love lingers in the body, in memory, even as the world moves forward, indifferent. The speaker does not cry out or act on her emotions; she simply witnesses, stunned by the ordinariness of loss.

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