Another Insane Devotion 

by Gerald Stern

This was gruesome—fighting over a ham sandwich                   
with one of the tiny cats of Rome, he leaped 
on my arm and half hung on to the food and half 
hung on to my shirt and coat. I tore it apart 
and let him have his portion, I think I lifted him 
down, sandwich and all, on the sidewalk and sat 
with my own sandwich beside him, maybe I petted 
his bony head and felt him shiver. I have 
told this story over and over; some things 
root in the mind; his boldness, of course, was frightening 
and unexpected—his stubbornness—though hunger 
drove him mad. It was the breaking of boundaries, 
the sudden invasion, but not only that it was 
the sharing of food and the sharing of space; he didn’t 
run into an alley or into a cellar, 
he sat beside me, eating, and I didn’t run 
into a trattoria, say, shaking, 
with food on my lips and blood on my cheek, sobbing; 
but not only that, I had gone there to eat 
and wait for someone. I had maybe an hour 
before she would come and I was full of hope 
and excitement. I have resisted for years 
interpreting this, but now I think I was given 
a clue, or I was giving myself a clue, 
across the street from the glass sandwich shop. 
That was my last night with her, the next day 
I would leave on the train for Paris and she would 
meet her husband. Thirty-five years ago 
I ate my sandwich and moaned in her arms, we were 
dying together; we never met again 
although she was pregnant when I left her—I have 
a daughter or son somewhere, darling grandchildren 
in Norwich, Connecticut, or Canton, Ohio. 
Every five years I think about her again 
and plan on looking her up. The last time 
I was sitting in New Brunswick, New Jersey, 
and heard that her husband was teaching at Princeton, 
if she was still married, or still alive, and tried 
calling. I went that far. We lived 
in Florence and Rome. We rowed in the bay of Naples 
and floated, naked, on the boards. I started 
to think of her again today. I still 
am horrified by the cat’s hunger. I still 
am puzzled by the connection. This is another 
insane devotion, there must be hundreds, although 
it isn’t just that, there is no pain, and the thought 
is fleeting and sweet. I think it’s my own dumb boyhood, 
walking around with Slavic cheeks and burning 
stupid eyes. I think I gave the cat 
half of my sandwich to buy my life, I think 
I broke it in half as a decent sacrifice. 
It was this I bought, the red coleus, 
the split rocking chair, the silk lampshade. 
Happiness. I watched him with pleasure. 
I bought memory. I could have lost it. 
How crazy it sounds. His face twisted with cunning. 
The wind blowing through his hair. His jaw working.

Gerald Stern, “Another Insane Devotion” from Lovesick Poems. Copyright © 1987 by Gerald Stern.

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