Distraction — Summary

Dave BontaRomantic

I clog myself with desire and miss the peak

alone in my barrow I endeavor to see give two loves for one late-night stay

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The speaker admits to a kind of self-sabotage: desire has stuffed them up so completely that they miss "the peak." That could be a literal summit or a moment of real fulfillment, and the poem leaves it open. The word "clog" makes desire feel less like passion and more like a blockage, something that gets in the way of seeing.

The second half is harder to pin down. The speaker is "alone in my barrow," which might suggest a burial mound or a small cart, and tries to "see," though the effort sounds lonely and a bit stubborn. The last lines, about giving "two loves for one / late-night stay," read like a strange bargain, as if the speaker would trade a lot of affection for a single night's company. The poem doesn't explain itself, so that reading is an interpretation. The mood is wistful, restless, and slightly self-mocking: someone who knows their wanting is the very thing that blinds them.

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