[Kevin J MacLellan]

Turner Cassity comments on the poem
“The octave and the sestet seem to belong to different poems.” I have to disagree.
The conversation(s) between the couple (“I” and “You”) in both the octet and the sestet suggest to me a consistent prosaic backdrop, like a subtext, for the seemingly disjointed scenes in the two parts. The couple witnesses a breakup and comment upon it in the octet. In the sestet, the N mentions having dreamt of having recorded it in a rather exotic location, with images from the dream providing an unusual, inscrutable ambience. Both scenes. what they witnessed and what the N dreamt, are backdrop to conversations that the couple have. They inform the N's awareness in a (mysterious) way that colors what "you" says.They are the mysterious and inscrutable subtext of the mundane-conversation(s) – of the couple, which is what the noir genre brings to the foreground. Whether this works beyond merely suggesting a mystery which isn't really there or not, is another question. One that applies as well to the genre as to this poem.
LL 13 & 14 brings us back to the prosaic surface of things, with 13 being a wry nod to the genre.
The implicit sexual metaphor of the car-garage in the octet, which is bolstered by “he never could hold on to parking space” line, is only obliquely referred to again in L 14. Isn’t this the way most films in the genre end?


Some Nits: It is impossible to say whether the conversation(s) is one continuous one, or two disparate occasions. The car reference militates for one view, the intervening dream for another.
It is equally difficult, impossible for me, to say anything more about the couple than is contained in “couple”. I cannot even characterize the N. Is this a flaw?
The 'inanition' line is just a throwaway. In a poem that seems to play on surfaces and depths, it does neither; badly. A missed opportunity.
I am assuming L3 contains a formatting glitch. L6 is simply a departure from the meter, as is, I think, L 12.
L9 is rather playful; Does “this” refer to the poem as a whole, or to the octet, only? The ambiguity works for me, though I think it is more sur-real than noir.
On the whole, I think this is really very clever and successful as a poem, though I think it less successful as a sonnet. The form seems a bad fit and is treated as such—which is not really what sonnet writing should do.