Infidelity
by A. Van Jordan (MacNolia, Norton)

Sometimes you learn words
By living them and sometimes
Words learn you

By defining who you are –
An eponym for appetite,
Lack of trust,

A volcano, a swash
Of lust and lies,
And here you come,

Introducing yourself
As John or some other
Alias defined by any

Trick your tongue
Can conjure, and,
Before you know

The meaning of the word,
Love has brought us
Back again and again.

There’s always a cure
For love, but it hurts;
And, yes, there’s always

A cure for the hurt,
But the remedy drags us
Right back

To where we started.

after William Matthews

MacNolia did exist according to her obituary in the front of the book from which I chose this poem. In 1936 she was the first African-American to reach the final round of the national spelling bee competition, apparently thwarted only by a word that was chosen by the Southern judges which was not on the official list.

My reason for choosing this poem, however, was not because of her record as a spelling bee finalist, but because in giving MacNolia a voice, the poet, A. Van Jordan, deals with the subject of balancing our love for another person with the pain they put us through. It might be drinking, drug-taking, gambling or being unfaithful. In this instance it’s infidelity that is the cause of MacNolia’s pain.

The cycle of love, marriage, infidelity, anger, recrimination, forgiveness, mistrust, can always lead back to love, only for the cycle to begin again.

MacNolia is talking to her husband, John, who, as I understand it, has become an eponym for “appetite,/ Lack of trust” and “lust and lies”. Words (being a spelling bee queen) are MacNolia’s tools, and she has chiselled out John’s shape with them so we know what he is. For her, the name “John” represents a man who is deceitful in order to gain affection and trust, and any “other alias” is whatever false projection of himself gets him what he wants.

“Words learn you/ By defining who you are” says MacNolia, who has learnt the word “infidelity” by living with it as a presence in her marriage.

Love has brought man and wife together not once, but “again and again”. One does not know if the implication is that they make love, or that they have separated in fury over John’s infidelities, but got back together again. Perhaps it’s both.

“There’s always a cure/ For love” she says, “but it hurts”. Does she mean that she knows how leaving John would save her, separating her from the person who is the cause of her pain? Then “there’s always/ A cure for the hurt”, which I take to mean that the cure for the hurt is to get back together, so that the pain of separation will cease. This would make sense then, when she tells us that “the remedy drags us/ Right back/ To where we started”.

It is a terrible loop; freedom from a toxic relationship means that one is alone, but to be alone is lonely, and one wishes to be with someone, and there he is, recently available, and he’s called John.

Sometimes our human need for companionship opens us up to invasion by those who are unworthy; the liars, the cheats, the con men (and women), and sometimes some of us will take what we can get in the belief that we might never have another chance. For some of us, the fear of loneliness makes a martyr of us in the face of the flaws, unsuitability or infidelity of our partners. Being happy in our own skins (into which only one of us can fit) sets us free. But some of us, like MacNolia, choose to remain and make the best of it. It’s always up to us.

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