What We Want

by Linda Pastan

What we want
is never simple.
We move among the things
we thought we wanted:
a face, a room, an open book
and these things bear our names--
now they want us.
But what we want appears
in dreams, wearing disguises.
We fall past,
holding out our arms
and in the morning
our arms ache.
We don't remember the dream,
but the dream remembers us.
It is there all day
as an animal is there
under the table,
as the stars are there
even in full sun.
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What we want appears in dreams, wearing disguises. There's a lot here to chew on, and a lot to love. This is not a breakfast poem, not a tapas poem. It is a 100% Grade A American dinner poem, hanging off the sides of the plate. I believe the shortcut to contentment is finding the line between what we want and what we need. Sometimes that's as wide as an ocean, sometimes it's razor-sharp. We don't remember the dream, but the dream remembers us.

Pastan writes with a freshness and a frankness that bounces from shocking to comforting and back. What a decidedly female, unmistakably American perspective. I thought maybe it was just a flirtation, but then I read "A New Poet," and I knew it was true love. The Happiest Day! Emily Dickinson! The Cossacks! Read them all here.