This is a similar poem.
It's called The Madman's Wife.
And I had had a friend several years ago-- this is partly
based on him-- who was having difficulties in his life.
He was having a schizophrenic episodes,
and I tried to think of the problem from the point of his--
his problems from the point of view of his wife.
Just how difficult it must be to live
with someone who's existing in a totally
different reality than you are.
The man's wife is speaking in the poem.
It takes place in the morning, when the man is coming home
through the neighborhood.
"The unleashed dog walks back and forth.
The cat leaps over the backyard fence.
The owl shifts.
Down this street, the madman threads his way,
over curb and cobblestone, and does not fall.
At dawn, everyone smiles.
The butcher has saved the plumpest hen,
the barber trims his hair.
The children tease him because he is there,
less than a child, more than a lump.
Later, he sits across from me at breakfast, talking of suicide.
His plate becomes the tin plate prisoners
use to rattle their complaints.
Last night in a bar, he says, a woman
disguised as his wife told him lie after lie.
There's no way to answer, so I put him to sleep.
What does he dream with his eyes open?
I might as well ask what a child dreams before speech gives him
the power to lie.
Out the window, the dog sees the shadow of a cat.
The cat looks after the owl, the owl keeps the moon in place.
To be mad, I know, is to be out of touch with life.
To touch a stranger in a bar and say, 'My wife.'
But even the truth would be a betrayal.
He wakes.
'Read me a story,' he begs, 'tell me the names.'
I gaze into his white eyes, into the blue gas
swirling in his heart.
'Oh, poor us,' I begin."
[APPLAUSE]