CHAPTER ONE CLOTHES You take off, we take off, they take off coats, jackets, blouses, double-breasted suits, made of wool, cotton, cotton-polyester, skirts, shirts, underwear, slacks, slips, socks, putting, hanging, tossing them across the backs of chairs, the wings of metal screens; for now, the doctor says, it's not too bad, you may get dressed, get rested up, get out of town, take one in case, at bedtime, after lunch, show up in a couple of months, next spring, next year; you see, and you thought, and we were afraid that, and he imagined, and you all believed; it's time to tie, to fasten with shaking hands shoelaces, buckles, velcro, zippers, snaps, belts, buttons, cuff links, collars, neckties, clasps and to pull out of handbags, pockets, sleeves a crumpled, dotted, flowered, checkered scarf whose usefulness has suddenly been prolonged. SOME PEOPLE LIKE POETRY Some people-- that means not everyone. Not even most of them, only a few. Not counting school, where you have to, and poets themselves, you might end up with something like two per thousand. Like-- but then, you can like chicken noodle soup, or compliments, or the color blue, your old scarf, your own way, petting the dog. Poetry-- but what is poetry anyway? More than one rickety answer has tumbled since that question first was raised. But I just keep on not knowing, and I cling to that like a redemptive handrail. THE THREE ODDEST WORDS When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it. When I pronounce the word Nothing, I make something no nonbeing can hold. NEGATIVE Against a grayish sky a grayer cloud rimmed black by the sun. On the left, that is, the right, a white cherry branch with black blossoms. Light shadows on your dark face. You'd just taken a seat at the table and put your hands, gone gray, upon it. You look like a ghost who's trying to summon up the living. (And since I still number among them, I should appear to him and tap: good night, that is, good morning, farewell, that is, hello. And not grudge questions to any of his answers concerning life, that storm before the calm.) CLOUDS I'd have to be really quick to describe clouds-- a split second's enough for them to start being something else. Their trademark: they don't repeat a single shape, shade, pose, arrangement. Unburdened by memory of any kind, they float easily over the facts. What on earth could they bear witness to? They scatter whenever something happens. Compared to clouds, life rests on solid ground, practically permanent, almost eternal. Next to clouds even a stone seems like a brother, someone you can trust, while they're just distant, flighty cousins. Let people exist if they want, and then die, one after another: clouds simply don't care what they're up to down there. And so their haughty fleet cruises smoothly over your whole life and mine, still incomplete. They aren't obliged to vanish when we're gone. They don't have to be seen while sailing on.
