Ryan Collins Elegy

Another Elegy

Jericho Brown

This is what our dying looks like.
You believe in the sun. I believe
I can’t love you. Always be closing,
Said our favorite professor before
He let the gun go off in his mouth. 5
I turned 29 the way any man turns
In his sleep, unaware of the earth
Moving beneath him, its plates in
Their places, a dated disagreement.
Let’s fight it out, baby. You have 10
Only so long left—a man turning
In his sleep—so I take a picture.
I won’t look at it, of course. It’s
His bad side, his Mr. Hyde, the hole
In a husband’s head, the O 15
Of his wife’s mouth. Every night,
I take a pill. Miss one, and I’m gone.
Miss two, and we’re through. Hotels
Bore me, unless I get a mountain view,
A room in which my cell won’t work, 20
And there’s nothing to do but see
The sun go down into the ground
That cradles us as any coffin can. 23

This Elegy is rife with sorrow and lament, the only aspect of a traditional Elegy that I found while reading this poem. The author clearly has dealt with a lot of death by titling the poem “Another Elegy”, showing he is no stranger to the melancholy style, and therefore, no stranger to death. Brown grieves for two individuals in this poem, his “favorite professor” who “let the gun go off in his mouth” and an unknown person, who he refers to in the second and third lines: “you believe in the sun, I believe i can’t love you” Brown struggles to accept the death of this incognito individual and his professor, preventing him from resuming his life. This is described in line 6 where he explains that he turned 29 “the way any man turns In his sleep” showing he remains inattentive to his life. This is also conveyed in lines 12-16 where Brown won’t look at the picture of himself “turning in his sleep” because it is his “bad side, his Mr Hyde, the hole in a husband’s head, the O Of a wife’s mouth”.The picture represents his life, and he refuses to look at it because it is plagued by death and sorrow.  Instead of facing their deaths, he gives up all hope, describing that since he “misses two” he is “through”. Brown is lamenting that since he lost both people, he has lost his will to live, and therefore prefers to dwell in solitude, in places where his “cell phone doesn't work.” It ends with “the sun go[ing] into the ground”. The person Brown referred to in line’s two and three “believed in the sun”, and with the sun setting, so does her memory, leaving Brown feeling empty as the sky with no sun.