I’ve been turning in the gloom for years

Making vows, Lord, hoping apples,

Skies late winter will turn to spring,

Just enough Rachmaninoff,

Maybe we can really go back home…

I sat in the Cafe Strindberg

December frost on a window

Coffee steaming

Pencils before me—

What might poems be for?

Even then I was half milk

Half iodine, optimistic

And very sad,

The songs on high

Were so cold

Each silent word

Like a spoon in snow.

I learned my work like everyone,