Things To Come

I’m in the bath: the water
is condensing like a deep fog in a silent film.
The book I’m reading’s open at a picture of Chardin’s, complete
– as usual – with an open drawer. There’s even steam in the painting,
lifting slightly from a china cup.

The walls around me have been limewashed white.
I’ve just shaved in the mirror and decide that I look nearly dead:
my hands are biblically pale and scarred;
my eyes feel very tired.

I’m listening to Bert Jansch singing folksongs about
failing love. Outside several birds address the morning,
though it’s really night, as though life
were somehow moving without going anywhere –
waiting round the corner at a place where
everything is known.
...