I’ve returned to this notion several times over the years, the abstract turned concrete. Imagine your wife asks you, “How much do you love me?” and you go, “Hang on a sec,” dive behind the back of the sofa and hand her this huge lump of stuff: “THERE!” Makes more sense than throwing your arms wide and going, “This much,” or saying, “To the moon and back.” I used answer questions like that with a number plucked out of thin air, “3.7,” or “4.25 and climbing,” or “eleventy-nine.” I mean it’s a stupid question. How much do I love you? Loads. What do you want me to say? “More than you love me.”

 

I do love in the poem how the narrator has to go elsewhere for his own opinion of himself. It’s just silly. But then the whole thing’s silly. And yet… What is my opinion of myself? In 1989 I’ll tell you one thing, it wasn’t very high. But it was fragile. I got that right.