Lately I’ve a been a hermit trying to understand the donut hole in my otherwise sweet life. Reading and writing my way to (fill) the middle. On the fringes of understanding something bigger than this apartment room.
Wallpaper
1
A room papered with clippings:
newsprint in bulging patches
none of them mention our names
gone from that history then O redkite snarled in a cloud
small plane melted in fog: no matter:
I worked to keep it current
and meaningful: a job of living I thoughthistory as wallpaper
urgently selected clipped and pasted
but the room itself nowheregone the address the house
golden-oak banisters zigzagging
upward, stained glass on the landings
streaked porcelain in the bathroomsloose floorboards quitting in haste we pried
up to secrete the rash imagination
of a time to comeWhat we said then, our breath remains
otherwhere: in me in you2
Sonata for Unaccompanied Minor
Fugitive Variations
discs we played over and overon the one-armed phonograph
Childish we were in our adoration
of the dead composerwho’d ignored the weather signs
trying to cross the Andes
stupidly I’d say nowand you’d agree seasoned
as we are working stretched
weeks eating food boughtwith ordinary grudging wages
keeping up with rent, utilitiesa job of living as I said
3
Clocks are set back quick dark
snow filters past my lashes
this is the common groundwhite-crusted sidewalks windshield wipers
licking, creaking
to and fro to and froIf the word gets out if the word
escapes if the word
flies if it dies
it has its way of coming backThe handwritings on the walls
are vast and codedthe music blizzards past
Adrienne Rich
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