WEBVTT

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This is a sequence
of three poems

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thematically related
called "Elsewheres."

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I don't usually read
this one because--

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I don't know.

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Something about it
seems hard to me,

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but it's on a theme, which
has always been close to me.

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And so I would like
people to like it.

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But the three
sections are called

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South, North, and waiting room.

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The last section was supposed
to be called something

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like middle West, but
that didn't seem right,

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so it had to be waiting.

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Anyway, the title
is "Elsewheres."

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So these are three
places where you're not

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and then South is the first.

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The long green shutters are
drawn against white parades.

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Closing our eyes
against the sun,

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we try to imagine the darkness
of an interior in which

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something might still happen.

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The rays are lying open on
the cool marble wash stand.

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The drip of something, is
it water upon stone floors?

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North.

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Already it is midsummer in
the Sweden of our lives.

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The peasants have
joined hands, they

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are circling the haystacks.

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We watch from the veranda.

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We sit mufflered
humming the tune

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in snatches under our breath.

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We tremble sometimes
not with emotion.

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Waiting room.

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Reading the signs, we
learn what to expect.

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The train's late, the
machine's out of order.

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We learn what it is to
stare out in the space.

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Great farms surround us.

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Squares of a checkerboard,
taking our places we wait.

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We wait to be moved.

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