"The Sky."
Whatever I care for, someone else loves it more,
deserves it more, the dough with their whole mouth crushing
the flax, or the seer who adores my future, whereas I
could take it or leave it.
I know I'll disappear.
It won't be glamorous.
It won't be like when the Mona Lisa, was stolen
and the tourists all lined up to pay their respects
at the empty spot on the wall of the Louvre.
I've never actually even seen the sky.
I've only ever seen effluents, seen wattage.
The only night I remember is the dinner
of neighbors at which a man I never had met before
said, "I don't fear dying.
Look at the past.
People have been dying forever."
And then he stopped and shook his head.
"I drank too much," he said.
"I was almost saying that people have been dying forever,
and all of them survived.
But of course."
He made a hard laugh.
"God, of course they didn't survive."
So I'm going to turn now to some poems from a new project
that I have been working on.
And it's called "Man at His Bath."
And I will start with the first poem, which is also
called "Man at His Bath."
Has anyone seen the painting "Man at His Bath?"
Oh, you must.