Mostly, I've tried to pick poems that I have written
since I was here 11 years ago.
And so that I wouldn't be repeating myself too much.
This pooem is called A Letter.
You write that you are ill, confused.
The trees outside the window of the room they
gave you are wet with tears each morning when they wake you out
of the sleep.
You never quite fall into.
There is some dream of traffic in your head
that stops and goes and goes and does not stop sometimes
all night all day.
The motorcade winds past you like the funeral cortege
of someone famous.
You had slept with once or twice.
Another fit of tears dampens the leaves the page.
You would expose your wounds, pull down your blouse,
and bosom yourself wholly to the young doctor, who
has the power to sign prescriptions passes who
seems to like you.
And so to pass into the city once again.
One of us hurrying by the damp trees of a park
towards a familiar intersection, where the traffic signal warned
you not to cross, to wait just as before alone.
But suddenly, 10 years older now, tamed, less mad,
less beautiful.