I've had a theme of doubles running through the book
as the title indicates, and I want
to read a poem called "The Likeness."
The book came out while I was in Ireland.
So I still don't know where everything is in it yet.
It has an epigraph from poems.
One might say that stone which does not regenerate
is in fact the only thing in nature that constantly dies.
I was interested in this poem in showing a lot of levels.
The poem is written so that you have the vision of looking out
through a window and having a fixed
scene outside that window and then
that is given dimension by someone passing
through in front of the window and also
through a reflection, the idea of reflection on the window.
"The Likeness."
To have felt much in doubt of caring
is conviction enough when a thing is done.
And you tell me as in a story how you sliced your breast
with a razor not to let him go.
Now every man who sees you by moonlight
must kiss that scar or scrape against it in the night.
And though you dismiss it as proof against new love,
they have seen your hand go to it like a heart.
I could not show where my own flesh closed,
though the ridge is there when I speak of it,
a finger traces the breath along the window
through the view, the river which stays the same.
Each time the breath seems more a part of the scene,
a man walks through it and I am the same.
You open your blouse to reflect the scar
and the man walks through it.
I am the same.
I am always the same.