A Secret Rage THE POEMING V: THE HEX OF HARRIS

Day 20

I sobered when I saw him.

I pitied him and I was angry with him.

I had resolve.

I had my own

virgin notebook.

Morning was stumbling

trying

to briskly keep the momentum going.

first/ before/ finally

over being young

Rage

Carefully intended

indeed

gratitude

for the finger

Earlier

crammed into years

gone

of college college

college society

cliques

too independent

I was glad to see

the door

attractive swept

a year ago, gone!

efficient woman tell them

it must have been a fluke.

old friend say now

a great display of roguery,

pay her for it.

It had been a long time since

a baby kept me,

close by.

with a grin or half-

admiration, half-regret.

Wasn’t living just

wrinkles at the corners

of eyes deeper calm

grace a moment sure

culling doubt /want /need

moving boxes of photographs

like opals

Something in confidence

a jump/ scream/ embrace

Great God definitely her own

impulse beamed just fine

faults in otherwise nice people.

a schedule

of sigh of relief

a mother figure

behind me

comfortable with

love!

my desk filled

like an island

in maelstrom

upheav all.

odd corners

suffocated

practical

with every form of material:

books, notebooks, papers.

smile, like books

stacked

everywhere plants

I’m going to be a writer.

ask me how

I plan to eat pay the rent

I’d laugh

smile again.

Prescribed

led to vaulted cloister.

glare

I peered through,

searching for signs,

fruitless searching,

I became frantic.

echoes building

I came out.

Way drew nearer, louder.

Can help simper?

awkward, hesitant strain

in the garden

concrete

great-grandfather

prominent in Houghton

led

to crisscross other paths

the heart to

recall

all the times I was going

to make it

happen

for myself. I would

face

Secret agony

green,

empty quiet

somewhere bit into

frazzled summer

Celest i a l gardens

depart ed

calm before the storm

We’d faithfully remain

seeing both along.

I was having my own thoughts,

a resemblance to Mother’s cigarette,

my theory anthropological,

that marriage consented to children.

Come to

divorce happened,

living, halfheartedly

crisis, generic,

solved in seconds.

Calling first,

the end of the freeze

we’d go to bed.

You with your transferred years.

Me, great green eyes fixed to, grace

-ful tragedy

out into the ether