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The Argument1
After the argument, all things were strange. They stood divided by their eloquence Which had surprised them after so much silence. Now there were real things to rearrange. Words betokened deeds, but they were both Lightened briefly, and they were inclined To be kind as sometimes strangers can be kind. It was as if, out of the undergrowth, They stepped into a clearing and the sun, Machetes still in hand. Something was done, But how they did not fully realize. Something was beginning. Something would stem And branch from this one moment. Something made Them both look up into each other's eyes Because they both were suddenly afraid And there was no one now to comfort them.
“The Argument” could be a poem for marriage counselors. Or a poem for anyone who is married or has ever been, or indeed, for anyone who has ever been in an important relationship of any kind. There's a moment—in anybody's life with anybody—when something turns, and not necessarily for the better: some words, a revelation, a betrayal, an eye-opening perception, often mutual, of serious difference. At such moments the narrative, the story couples tell themselves about who they are together, changes.
A. E. Stallings2 is a contemporary American poet of great accomplishment and subtle observation. Her close reading here of the changes in emotional weather that come with a serious marital fight is brilliant. She captures the odd dissociative estrangement after the burst of “eloquence” that follows when long-unuttered thoughts have been expressed, that moment when we know things have been said that cannot be taken back, performative words, speech acts requiring further acts. And we recognize the exaggerated politeness of people unsure about where to go next, overwhelmed by the changes their words have wrought, and reluctant to lose the something good they thought they had.
Stallings is regarded as one of the “new formalists”—contemporary poets who make use of traditional forms. She gives us her ob