The News

In different cities, on different

forms of transportation, a woman read Daniel Deronda

until the year became the arbitrary pink

the calendar chose for the middle of winter.

And finally she sat in the reference section

of the public library finishing Daniel Deronda

for days at a slowing pace between pieces

of newspapers and foreign language newspapers

whose syntax she enjoyed, not understanding.

And when she didn't anymore she wrote in the margins

of Daniel Deronda for someone

who might never see. Thought of that person

who might never see, staring equally at the rain, equally

thinking of her and of nothing in particular.

Outside the news fell apart. If one chooses

to be shallow or noble, or one

is born so, and if it matters. Translations

are appropriate when Nature is dormant, or when one

has nothing to say, or does not know

what to say. These are three different things

but sometimes they are the same.

It is not wrong to want nice things, neither

is it wrong to want to be good, or to feel that

as a physical force of pleasure: Daniel Deronda,

who does not know who he is,

who thinks he does, and goes away on a boat.

But the cover is a picture of a woman gambling.

The air warms outside the reference

section, and also the rain. Incomprehensible news.

Whenever a book ends, silence, as if a stewardship had ceased.

A person can feel the bones of one's hands by stretching them.

If love comes again, know better than to speak.

Source: Permission (New Issues Press, 2013)