The generation above me is dying. It is wrong to notice this. Younger death is news that no longer stays news. The political clock runs backwards, and the pandemic clock has been stopped. However, the generation above me is passing. It is like breathing thin air that does not refresh; like staring into a moving lift shaft. Why am I not writing elegies? Is it because so many of those poets turned people into bodies? With a look, a gesture, a refusal of a life-changing reference, an inexhaustible demand – O Muse – for our unpaid words. Touch is not immediate; it lives on replay in the bodymind. Tact is not only about the unknowability of others; it enables the refusal to know. The skin is not a container; the sense of self can split, dissolve, or multiply. My words would mourn; but my body recalls the touches.

Imagine meeting a legendary poet for the first time. He does a lot of listening to you and your friend. His facial expressions show a sincere practice of humility and wonder. Apropos of nothing, he leans forward. ‘I want to be your agent!’ he barks. He leans back wistfully. Uncomfortably, you laugh it off: ‘But…you’re not an agent? I don’t need an agent…What does an agent do?’ As if automated, he leans forward and barks again. He will not take no for an answer. At some point, he gazes into your eyes. It would be impolite, but his right to intensity has been established. The humility and wonder return. ‘You have oval pupils!’ he exclaims. No, no I don’t. ‘Like an animal,’ he says. ‘I’ve never seen that before ...