Comfort

Comfort is an exemplary verb. Everyone has a high opinion of it. We’d like to ship it round the world and if we could we’d soak the earth in it.

The noun, comfort, is not entirely reprehensible, though already there’s a whiff of the lifestyle magazine, of homes in gated communities. There’s a wall certainly, and also a door that locks. You’d like to have it for your children. You hope it extends into old age.

(Is it possible to think of comfort, really, without also feeling afraid?)

The adjective, comfortable, is entirely dubious, though my husband doesn’t think so. What’s wrong with being comfortable? he asks. We’re doing well as anyone, rock-a-bye, treetop.

Comfortable, it seems to me, is the fine print on a sleeping pill. There’s an ominous warmth. The dog circles three times and lies down for a nap.

The Reverend Hartman, at home in Winesburg, wonders if the flame of the spirit really burns in him, decides, “Oh well, I suppose I’m doing well enough.”

Is that heat gas? Do these windows open?

I remember the day I read, in a poem by Luis Cernuda, Comfort is corrosive. I felt relieved, as when the doctor admits, “This is going to hurt.”

Better to be up too early, driving in January, the window cracked into the freezing rain.

We live in comfort. Resist languor.

That smell is smoke.