1. Iron, sulphur, steam: the wastes Of all resorts like this have left their traces. Old canes and crutches line the walls.
Light Floods the room, stripped from the pool, broken And shimmering like scales.
Hidden By curtains, women dry themselves Before the fire and review The service at hotels, The ways of dying, ways of sleep, The blind ataxia patient from New York, And all the others who were here a year ago. 2. Visconti, mad with pain.
Each day, Two hundred drops of laudanum.
Hagen, who writhes With every step.
The Count, a shrunken penis And a monocle, dreaming of horses in the sun, Covered with flies.—Last night I woke in sweat To see my hands, white, curled upon the sheet Like withered leaves.
I thought of days So many years ago, hauling driftwood up from the shore, Waking at noon, the harbor birds following Boats from the mainland.
And then no thoughts at all. Morphine at five.
A cold dawn breaking.
Rain. 3.
I lie here in the dark, trying to remember What my life has taught me.
The driveway lights blur In the rain.
A rubber-tired metal cart goes by,
Followed by a nurse; and something rattles Like glasses being removed after A party is over and the guests have gone.
Test tubes, beakers, graduates, thermometers— Companions of these years that I no longer count.
I reach for a cigarette and my fingers Touch a tongue depressor that I use As a bookmark; and all I know Is the touch of this wood in the darkness, remembering The warmth of one bright summer half a life ago— A blue sky and a blinding sun, the face Of one long dead who, high above the shore,
Looked down on waves across the sand, on rows of yellow jars In which the lemon trees were ripening.
