Disengaging from her after love
but misguaging where I was,
I rolled off the edge of the fouton
and landed on my glasses where
I had earlier so carefully placed them
out of the way, but now they lay in two,
the lenses smashed as well,
and I knew immediately I’d want to see
something significant in the accident
--that, say, sex is blind, or how
easily we can ruin love,
or that because all appearances
of course deceive I could now hope
for some clarity of vision,
but, tiring of such appropriating,
vowed instead--after sweeping up
and discarding the useless heap--
to take the loss as a sign of
absolutely nothing, maybe Stevens’ nothing
“that is not there and the nothing
that is”--both nothings, so that I could
have my nothing and eat it, too--
or if a sign of something only that
paying attention is always good,
even--oh, especially--in bed.
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