In the night shop’s Gothic theater,where unstrung carcasses of violinsand cellos are laid out on tables
Combing my hair, a sudden snarlin the pink teeth.
How silent, death entering.
Wind does one thing with clouds, another with leaves;the clouds go, go, go; the leaves
Since I last looked up from my book, another appeared in the room
Dressed to the nines, and she is eighty-six!A gold lamé gown,Savage pearls in her pierced earlobes!Diamonds blazingThat her Grandmother Haynes woreA century ago!In Washington City!Before the War!
This time the leaving felt especially good as if I’d movedtoward some clean elemental selfishness