We would like to believe that, like the lovers
in Donne, we rule a kingdom of two
in our panic room. That as the body recovers
after love the sun which burns through
our blissed-out eyelids cannot dent us.
But the script intrudes and domination enters;
your phone is flashing with a work email;
our jobs aren’t safe and we still rent. The struggle
is to house-share with Leviathan—while
amending the lines we’re given and that do arouse,
that we’ve been sold and we’re sold on,
with moments wholly ours to improvise…
Hobbes, on anxiety: a perpetual solicitude
of the time to come. The happiest moment must erode.
Leviathan
Vidyan Ravinthiran is the author of Grun-tu-molani and The Million-Petalled Flower of Being Here, as well as a prize-winning study of Elizabeth Bishop.
Featured
Reading the Declaration of Independence as Holy Text
How the American creed emerged—and evolved—over 250 years
You Might Also Like
Books
Speech Acts
Eunice de Souza, a post-Independence Indian poet, explores the glitches in poetic voicing
Support Our Commitment to Print
Subscribe to The Yale Review. Receive four print issues a year—essays, fiction, poetry, and criticism.
Subscribe