Beyond Hammonton

By Stephen Dunn b. 1939 Stephen Dunn

Night is longing, longing, longing,
beyond all endurance.
—Henry Miller

The back roads I’ve traveled late

at night, alone, a little drunk,

wishing I were someone

on whom nothing is lost,

are the roads by day I take

to the car wash in Hammonton

or to Blue Anchor’s

lawnmower repair shop

when the self-propel mechanism goes.

Fascinating how the lamplight

that’s beckoned

from solitary windows

gives way to white shutters

and occasionally a woman

in her yard, bending over

something conspicuously in bloom.

So much then is duty, duty, duty,

and so much

with the sun visor tilted

and destination known

can be endured.

But at night . . . no, even at night

so much can be endured.

I’ve known only one man

who left the road,

followed an intriguing light

to its source.

He told me

that he knocked many times

before it became clear to him

he must break down the door.

Stephen Dunn, “Beyond Hammonton” New and Selected Poems (1974-1994). Copyright © 1994 by Stephen Dunn. Reprinted with the permission of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. This selection may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Source: New & Selected Poems (1994)

Biography

Poet Stephen Dunn was born in 1939 in New York City. The first of his family to go to college, Dunn attended Hofstra University on a basketball scholarship and later worked in advertising. In an interview with Poets and Writers, Dunn discussed the leap from being an ad-man to poet: “My first job out of college was writing in-house brochures for Nabisco in New York, and I kept getting promoted. I was in danger, literally, of . . .

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