WEBVTT

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This is a poem that is
keyed by two dreams.

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I think they'll be self-evident.

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You should know that the
first language in the poem

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is dream language.

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"A Few Nights and Days."

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"He foresaw a lagoon cut
off from its larger body,

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capillaries floating
like plankton

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in a cadaver, a
man with his arms

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joyously around men and women.

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When he woke, it was a Tuesday,
the porch lights still on

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and umbrage in the
air over breakfast.

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The woman he loved had
her eyes closed, looking

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for holes in his arguments.

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He muffed his mouth,
hating her, wondering

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if she knew she'd be
dead in 30 or 40 years,

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hating himself
from the stone wall

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he could build in
seconds around his heart,

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hating the nation talk, the
journalism between people

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who simply wanted touch.

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His daughter came in with
the alphabet in her mouth.

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How, out of love, he squeezed
her until she was breathless.

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How, if she were Vietnamese
and on the run, beyond hunger,

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scabbed, whimpering,
he might, out of love,

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squeeze her until she was dead.

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And then it was
Wednesday and Thursday,

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and every morning the porch
light a dull beacon in the sun.

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He dreamed the last
suck of a falling

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star, that intake of air before
one begins to dazzle the world,

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and the regular breath of
people everywhere contemplating

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insurance.

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And he woke and found himself
on the edge of nothing

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in particular in
the middle of a bed

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big enough for three victims
of the 6 o'clock news.

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He made love to his
wife, whispering,

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this is how you steal moments
from the end of your life.

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And they knocked the clock off
the night table, the covers

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onto the floor, and the orphans
took their big eyes elsewhere,

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but only for a while.

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The 20th century was relentless.

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There were satellites near
the moon reporting everything,

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children wanting to know
why squirrels didn't look

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both ways before cars hit
them, the ordinary desolation

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of handshakes and lunches.

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Not even sex or his natural
capacity for self-deception

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did much good anymore.

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On the last day of
the week in a year,

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in a lifetime of
last days, he left

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his house daydreaming his shadow
had shed its dark clothes.

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The streets were crowded.

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He saw the flesh of beautiful
women, all flesh as flesh

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that is dying.

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But he said to himself,
every touch is a renewal,

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every touch is a renewal,
and he touched no one."

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