"My thoughts are crowded with death
and it draws so oddly on the sexual that
I am confused confused to be attracted by,
in effect, my own annihilation."
âThom Gunn, "In Time of Plague"
Out of my nakedness come these words.
They hum my recollections, my eulogy,
my own elegy before deathâ
I must say them for myself.
If these words could they wouldcry outâ
But they are powerless.
And the sun slowly rises unto the windowidth
with the blinds measuring light inch by inch.
Outside, birds quilt sounds in the skyâ
their needlebeaks patchinâ
clouds onto the blue cloth.
If I could I would open the window
snatch the quilt from the air
and once again feel the gentle breeze
cottonbrush against my cheeks
and smell the sweet soapof magnolia.
But outside the air is as dangerous to me
as the wind is to a candle blown into
This morning I think of lifeâof deathâ
of those dead before meâof you, who only
left a quiet whispergasp exhaling
out and out and out, at last ending
as to yell, like as a bird's
weight would be in my arms. Sometimes
illusion brings you back to meâ
a press of a curled form next to mine.
So I grope to hold this form, once so familiar,
yet my arias wrap around a shape
I do not know joyâa shadow, an airless
incognito I cannot cares could cry
but my tears are for what's empty.
Everyday I lie in this bed and watch the worldgo by;
a child on the sidewalk cries; his little
rec balloon floats higher into the air.
What lies through its rouge window?
What happiness could be missed?
But three four five?â
What joy resides there? I can never know;
Iâve spend my lifetime adjusting to the light.
âPhillip Calvert Scearce, 1994
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