And Day Brought Back My Night

It was so simple: you came back to me
And I was happy. Nothing seemed to matter
But that. That you had gone away from me
And lived for days with him — it didn't matter.
That I had been left to care for our old dog
And house alone — couldn't have mattered less!
On all this, you and I and our happy dog
Agreed. We slept. The world was worriless.

I woke in the morning, brimming with old joys
Till the fact-checker showed up, late, for work
And started in: Item: It's years, not days.
Item: you had no dog. Item: she isn't back,
In fact, she just remarried. And oh yes, item: you
Left her, remember? I did? I did. (I do.)¹⁴

I am drawn to the speaker’s unrealistic contentment in the beginning of the poem, which starkly contrasts with his uncomfortable guilt in the last line. The sudden climatic revelation in the final four lines effectively portrays this. It is a personal poem, as sentences break to reveal the speaker’s voice and thoughts of denial, giving impressions that he may be an unreliable narrator. (“I did?”, line 14)

The title, “And Day Brought Back My Night”, comes from the last line of John Milton’s sonnet, “On His Deceased Wife” (1656). This is an allusion, and Brock may have intended to create a modern version of Milton’s work. In both poems, the speakers imagine being reunited with their wives, although in Milton’s poem the ending reveals that the speaker’s wife has in fact died. Brock follows the emotions in Milton’s poem: first a dream-like delight, and then grief, but interestingly Brock places shame on the protagonist. The rhyme and structured form of Milton’s sonnet, however, is translated into free verse in Brock’s poem.