Days We Would Rather Know by Michael Blumenthal

There are days we would rather know
than these, as there is always, later,
a woman we would rather have married
than whom we did, in that severe nowness
time push, imperfectly, to then. Whether,
standing in the museum before Rembrandt's "Juno,"
we stand before beauty, or only a consensus
about beauty, is a question that makes all beauty
suspect... and all marriages. Last night,
leaves circled the base of the gingko as if
the sun had shattered during the night
into a million gold coins no one had the sense
to claim. And now, there are days we would
rather know than these, days when to stand
before beauty and before "Juno" are, convincingly,
the same, days when the shattered sunlight
rests in the trees and the women we marry
remain interesting and beautiful both at once,
and their men. And though there are days
we would rather know than now, I am,
at heart, a scared and simple man. So I tighten
my arms around the woman I love, now
and imperfectly, stand before "Juno" whispering
beautiful beautiful until I believe it, and -
when I come home at night - run out
into the day's pale dusk with my broom
and my dustpan, sweeping the coins from the base
of the gingko, something to keep for a better tomorrow:
days we rather know that never come.