It wasn't that he liked being
miserable.
He simply had grown used to wearing
a certain face, become comfortable
with his assortment of shrugs and sighs.
His friends said How are you?--
and prepared their sympathy cards.
Miserable was his style, his insurance
against life's frightening, temporary joys.
And when the truly awful happened,
some rejection or loss,
how ready he was for its aftermath,
how appropriate his posture, his words.
Yet when she said she loved him
something silently wild and molecular
began its revolution; he would've smiled
if the news from the distant provinces
of his body had reached him in time.
He frowned. And did not allow the short sigh
which would have meant pleasure
but now, alone, was just old breath
escaping, the long ahhhh, that music
which soothed him, and was his song.
Stephen Dunn,
New and Selected Poems 1974-1994