I love this poem. The playful contradictory use of “rock” in the first two lines suggests something solid and moving . . . then the announcement of the theme in the third line, the lack of light, foreshadowed in the first. The poet announces her utter lack of poetic inspiration. She follows with the explanation—her love affair with a man she didn't love. The complete confusion of symbols reveals the poetic bankruptcy. She's a boat, he's a boat, but they sit next to one another, presumably, in his boat. Her having gotten out of her boat (the boat that was her) to sit in his is what destroyed her poetic vision. His wet kisses chosen over the river's poetic wetness. Jersey twinkles distantly with the lost light. She then goes on with a whole string of black things which she never loved; they were empty of poetic inspiration. In the end it all goes backward as the poor poet searches for something to love--that is poetry itself, which has abandoned her, presumably because of the abomination of the wet kisses she accepted from the man she didn't love. Or maybe not.
I love this poem. The playful contradictory use of “rock” in the first two lines suggests something solid and moving . . . then the announcement of the theme in the third line, the lack of light, foreshadowed in the first. The poet announces her utter lack of poetic inspiration. She follows with the explanation—her love affair with a man she didn't love. The complete confusion of symbols reveals the poetic bankruptcy. She's a boat, he's a boat, but they sit next to one another, presumably, in his boat. Her having gotten out of her boat (the boat that was her) to sit in his is what destroyed her poetic vision. His wet kisses chosen over the river's poetic wetness. Jersey twinkles distantly with the lost light. She then goes on with a whole string of black things which she never loved; they were empty of poetic inspiration. In the end it all goes backward as the poor poet searches for something to love--that is poetry itself, which has abandoned her, presumably because of the abomination of the wet kisses she accepted from the man she didn't love. Or maybe not.