Third Avenue in Sunlight

By Anthony Hecht 1923–2004 Anthony Hecht

Third Avenue in sunlight. Nature’s error.

Already the bars are filled and John is there.

Beneath a plentiful lady over the mirror

He tilts his glass in the mild mahogany air.

I think of him when he first got out of college,

Serious, thin, unlikely to succeed;

For several months he hung around the Village,

Boldly T-shirted, unfettered but unfreed.

Now he confides to a stranger, “I was first scout,

And kept my glimmers peeled till after dark.

Our outfit had as its sign a bloody knout,

We met behind the museum in Central Park.

Of course, we were kids.” But still those savages,

War-painted, a flap of leather at the loins,

File silently against him. Hostages

Are never taken. One summer, in Des Moines,

They entered his hotel room, tomahawks

Flashing like barracuda. He tried to pray.

Three years of treatment. Occasionally he talks

About how he almost didn’t get away.

Daily the prowling sunlight whets its knife

Along the sidewalk. We almost never meet.

In the Rembrandt dark he lifts his amber life.

My bar is somewhat further down the street.

Source: Collected Earlier Poems (1990)

Biography

One of the leading voices of his generation, Anthony Hecht’s poetry is known for its masterful use of traditional forms and linguistic control. Extraordinarily erudite, Hecht’s verse often features allusions to French literature, Greek myth and tragedy, and English poets and poetry stretching from Wallace Stevens to John Donne. Hecht, who died in 2004, was often described as a “traditionalist.” George P. Elliott contended in the . . .

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