Don't Leave a Good Time Looking for a Good Time

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• Don’t Leave a Good Time Looking for a Good Time
• Michael Bazzett (bio)

is advice I received from a colleaguewith an incongruous ponytailwho once gave his students a testwith only one problem: Define Mathematics.He looked wistful as he relayedtheir consternation and befuddlementover a bowl of forlorn noodlesin the school cafeteria. When askedhow he’d respond, he shruggedand said, “The search for patterns.”“That’s nice,” I said, then repeatedthe phrase, “The search for patterns.”The admonishment to not leavea good time looking for a good timeis also symmetrical, and thus hintsat an endless unfolding patternof wisely choosing stasis to conservewhat little happiness we encounter,yet also begs the question of howwe might parse the nuance of timesthat are good and those merely goodenough? This advice arrived not [End Page 1] in the cafeteria, but over a littlewhisky during an anecdote in whichhe’d reached beneath his girlfriend’sporch to pluck up the pink tailof what he’d thought was a babysnake yet was in reality a possumswinging like a lantern in his grip.“They have yellow needly teeth.They smell like they’re inside out,”he said, “They are not a good time.And if I’d just stayed where I was,I would not have been clutchingthis hissing menace, which I flunggently into the kudzu.” “Which iswhen I knew,” interrupted his then-girlfriend, now-wife, “That he wasthe one.” As she spoke, he sippedhis drink, sat back, and played dead. [End Page 2]

Michael Bazzett

Michael Bazzett is the author of four books of poetry, most recently The Echo Chamber (Milkweed Editions 2021). His translation of the selected poems of Humberto Ak’abal, If Today Were Tomorrow, is forthcoming from Milkweed in 2024.

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