Leave It All Up to Me by Major Jackson

Leave It All Up to Me

by Major Jackson

All we want is to succumb to a single kiss

that will contain us like a marathon

with no finish line, and if so, that we land

like newspapers before sunrise, halcyon

mornings like blue martinis. I am learning

the steps to a foreign song: her mind

was torpedo, and her body was storm,

a kind of Wow. All we want is a metropolis

of Sundays, an empire of hand-holding

and park benches. She says, "Leave it all up to me."

This poem appeared in Major Jackson's 2010 book, Holding Company (WW Norton).

Who doesn't love a short and sweet love poem? And this one--with its odd and compelling metaphors is just perfect.

It can be tricky to use a line from the poem as the poem's title, as it may very well take the power from the line once it appears in the poem. That is not the case here as the line in the poem is spoken by the speaker's love and as the title, we assume the "me" is the speaker. A small shift in perception is a nice surprise.

All we want--the we as in all of humanity--pulls us in right away, since we are included.

We then get a short list of metaphors: a marathon with no finish line, land like early morning newspapers being tossed onto porches, and blue martini mornings. These images and the senses they spark in us are thoughtful, fun, and memorable. I admit to favoring "mornings like blue martinis"--I am a sucker for similes and all of the things I imagine when I read this are delightful: scent of liquor and sweetness, swirling movement of clouds/ice, and a very deep blue in the sky.

The speaker then tells us he was not just speaking hypothetically--there is a specific love in his life. Again, we get fascinating descriptions for this woman.

her mind

was torpedo, and her body was storm

a kind of Wow.

Powerful description, made stronger by the ommission of articles. Even before tyhis, the speaker is learning the "steps" to this woman's song--not the notes or words. This suggests a few things--movement, which is certainly reinforced by torpedo and storm, and also the speaker's own crazy-in-love thinking. He is just trying to keep up with this woman and his feelings for her. He seems so flabbergasted by everything he is reduced to "wow." (I think we can all relate to this--something--love or something else--that is so overwhelming we can only react with "wow.")

Jackson returns to "we" here at the end and provides us with more things that all of us want from being in love. Or he is signalling that the "we" is himself and his love, which makes the "we" at the poem's start just the two of them. I like to think both uses of "we" signify both all of us and just the two of them. And isn't that how the rush of love makes everyone feel? We know there is a planet of people out there, but we also feel like it is just the two of us.

Again, the list here at the end is beautifully strange but also very understandable. A city of Sundays (lazy days off) and a city full of people holding hands and sitting on park benches on those Sundays; in other words, a planet filled with people in love.

The poem ends with the woman the speaker loves telling him, in essence, she's got this. She will make all of this happen. I love this so much! We have seen how much in love the speaker is, but this is confirmation that she is just as madly in love, and this poem becomes so sweet, but not sappy or syrupy. Just sweet enough.

I hope you enjoyed today's love poem! Major Jackson teaches at Vanderbilt and has six books of poetry out. All can be had from your favorite independent bookseller! Here is a link to more about him, as well as a photo of him that is such a professor photo; honestly, it looks like the picture under the professor entry in a dictionary!