“This is Just to Say” - William Carlos Williams

“Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold”

- Williams

✨

On partnership

✨

It’s midnight and I’ve only just gotten up from work. The house is blessedly quiet. We’re hosting my husband’s colleagues, and it’s chaos (though I love them, truly). It reminds me of the bad old days when we were freshly out of college, full of new initiatives, hosting friends and coworkers every other week.

But the line is so thin in a partnership, isn’t it? That dance between give and take?

It’s hard to balance an equation that spans such a broad range of skills, and that extends beyond the economy of a day (or week, or month, or maybe even a year… marriage is A Whole Thing).

Today: I ran to the store, hosted dinner, set up the blowup mattress. It’s late. I’m so tired. Tomorrow: what? me again or Husband? (Husband pulls his weight, I promise you).

I love this poem for the way it performs the easy trust between caring partners… and the preconditions of that trust. (Also, of course, for inspiring my midnight snack):

1️⃣ A confession (“I have eaten the plums… you were probably saving for breakfast”)

2️⃣ A plea (a capital F “Forgive me”)

3️⃣ A lack of remorse (“they were so delicious so sweet and so cold”).

Each step betrays a negotiation of resources so often repeated that it is not only casual but playful.

Casual: written as if it were a note left on the counter; no punctuation; minimalist structure. Each stanza is four lines, and each line is maximum three words. There is no rhyme scheme, just occasional sonic resonance. For example: the /s/ sound in plums/ice box (stanza 1) delicious, so (x2), sweet… (stanza 3)

Playfulness: the teasing flagrance of pointing out the transgression, the goading luxuriation in the delicious plum.

Such a poem/note is only possible with deep trust…and no score book. This trust is built on years of accumulated experience. You and your partner know when you take the plum, and therefore can surrender one the next time around.

Williams’ poem isn’t really an apology. It’s acknowledgment of the IOU, and therefore commitment to future giving. Plum? Annoying. Poem? witness to the greatest victory of them all.