For my archives.

Old Dogs By Stephen Dunn Those Trotskys of relationships, perpetual revolution their motto, their impatient hearts dangerous to all that's complacent, I understand them perfectly and also why someone they've left behind might travel all the way to Mexico with a pickaxe to put an end to things. It's human nature, after all, to want to put an end to things. And to start up again. "Because you can't teach old dogs new tricks," Dinah Washington said, "you got to get yourself some new dogs" She was explaining her eight husbands, And this was the argument for nine. If I'd known anyone of her old dogs no doubt I'd understand why he might have just wanted to lie on the couch and go for short walks. I've wanted to do nothing as often as I've wanted to rise up, rush into the night. Falling in love produces such anxiety, my friend says, thank God there's sex for some occasional repose. He lives for scattered episodes with one women at a time I understand that, too. as I understand year after year doing a few same things in the same house with the same person settled and unsettled, for the long haul.