5.
the tall one goes out into the spotlight, holding the door with her trailing
left arm, for the shorter & older one, who has just said 'i feel as
if i m ten pounds lighter,' and who now, passing into the brighter light,
with her face held back toward me as her shoulders go on forward thru the
door, is saying goodnight. i am standing above
the two steps at the head of the corridor, and when i turn back to the laundry
room door, i am seeing, the first midway down the corridor & the second
near its distant, darker end, two bands of light from cubicle doors left
open. this sequence as i pause to consider the look of the corridor &
to wonder if i am also remembering it, seems familiar, as if a dream i v
recalled & wondered at: i
am working in a steambath, two east indian women leave by the street door,
the one leaving last looks at me from an intent pained face & says goodnight.
i see the corridor with two bands of light thrown across it, one halfway
down, the other near the end
two, the nearer more intense; followed by another two of the same structure
she allows herself to saturate into her own past time but she arranges
into it recognitions for the reader, information catching up
flying over the east field
islands in furrow lines remainders
snow in black lines
the flier says it s archeological
foundations left on the hill i love
'capture the strength & delicacy of every sound'
have transplanted the two poplars
one i can see from across the precinct arena
has died a support
built around it, nails driven into the trunk
someone else built the support for the other so it was buffered
the small temple of ephesus falls over near them
there are men with bull masks running at & overturning other men
before, it was a barn, the rich farmer let the bull roam in the stalls,
i climbed to the ceiling, they were unconcerned, he was going to take us
to see expensive cows
i was thinking the temple had tipped because it was inside the larger
temple & field of the god antagonistic to its god
the poplars were also of ephesus
'if someone asked me if i had a child i wanted to say
i have a son but he doesnt t live with me'
she puts out her extraordinary field & everything in it resolves
then years later her memory has it so intense & complete that she can
just hold it in front of her & write it down
'in an unbroken flow that by reason of its temperature ..' left her free
to wander
come'on my darling i like you best
but your desperate poking last time that i dont forgive because you liked
it
watching the sense of when we understood each other & when not
two rings h'lo
laugh 'i dont think i meant to call you i thought
i was calling someone else'
'i think you did i'm afraid there s going to be a war'
'what are they saying on the radio'
'they r saying things about russia again, and theres a recession in america'
'you mean you re thinking of your family?'
'i have to go now
i mean i have to go because of the feeling there is in me about it'
'alright'
looking at last summer s photographs finding them innocent mysterious
& accurately conveying, satisfying
i did go far into disintegration to get them
is it literal the way the light changes when she does
look he sez, gotta go down town anyway, will you drive me
then he wants me to stop at city hall
he hadda stop at the bank first
you gotta grease a few of the boys ay
oh emilio told you about that, he sez
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