Moi Haissable by Frederick Pollack

I learn that I offended someone, that something

I said or wrote, some time ago, was deeply

insensitive, but at the time the person

affected said nothing.  Now I’m staying

a few days, far from home, with my unsuspected

victim, and the issue, never far

below the surface of the victim,

is ignited by something I say. 

I remember the incident, my original

statement, and with an effort

can see how someone could see it

that way, take it badly, but I don’t

see it that way.  Overreacting, oversensitive –

I force these thoughts about my victim,

but they’re not what’s important:

what matters is the vast sun

rising again, orange sun of a cold planet

on which I walk amid structures

that may be ruins, traces of other life,

but probably aren’t.  I walk there always

though for years at a time

I think I walk another planet, ours.

I don’t say this, of course, to the person

involved, who would only think it proved

my self-absorption, immaturity,

insensitivity, or rather, since they are proved,

that they are unmitigated.  Instead

I apologize.  I say I hadn’t

understood how my words could be taken amiss,

but now I do and am sorry.  And the rictus

of regret and humility tenses

my neck and the muscles of my cheeks

and eyes, though perhaps not quite reaching

the eyes, and I am forgiven.

I have often slept in the houses of enemies.