After All, We Are Nothing

The Floor Seemed Wonderfully Solid. It Was Comforting To Know I Had Fallen And Could Fall No Farther.

The Silence Depressed Me. It Wasn't The Silence Of Silence. It Was My Own Silence.

This Is Newness: Every Little Tawdry Obstacle Glass-wrapped And Peculiar, Glinting And Clinking In A Saint's Falsetto. Only You Don't Know What To Make Of The Sudden Slippiness, The Blind, White, Awful, Inaccessible Slant. There's No Getting Up It By The Words You Know. No Getting Up By Elephant Or Wheel Or Shoe. We Have Only Come To Look. You Are Too New To Want The World In A Glass Hat.

A Ring Of Gold With The Sun In It? Lies. Lies And A Grief.

What I Didn't Say Was That Each Time I Picked Up A German Dictionary Or A German Book, The Very Sight Of Those Dense, Black, Barbed-wire Letters Made My Mind Shut Like A Clam.