Nocturne

Last night in bed

I mouthed a prayer

of my own composition.

It sounded offhand, it was carelessly

addressed, it twisted my meaning

entirely, it left an ache,

I didn’t know what I was doing.

So I took down my yellowed copy

of French With Pictures

by the late literary critic I.A. Richards

and I put my petition

into soft French words.

I.A. Richards believed that irony

was the language of redemption.

He wrote and lectured famously on this,

but his masterpiece was French With Pictures.

“The chapeau is on the table.”

“The man with the beard stands before the window.”

“She comes from a village by the sea.”

There is no improving the old traditions.

They are already mortal, partial, and wrong.

The woman at the table by the window

puts her head into her hands.

“Into your hands,” she said.