Ann Lauterbach

  Gramercy Park Evening

  I am, in these instances, aware
  there is much to be desired, much left to desire,
  and the rest abided. The late hour has everything
  turned down; even the constant fleet of wheels
  is another noise: less. I was trying to sleep
  and to imagine us near the sea, the light
  skinny and unhedged, the sea
  a ribbed plate, a wide blue absolute
  into which pink is introduced like an idea in music.

  Desire is an aspect of ethics; belief is not.
  You can move a peach across the table
  without changing its color but the light, this light,
  casts a shadow of doubt. What we perceive
  is part dream, part deceit; what we want 
  touches knowledge. The park is something you
  could not know about: late afternoon, a walk,
  the walk I sometimes took towards a cadence
  of real images: the gate, the grass, the lock.
  There was a sense that things were lit
  from within, of high, shut carriages and women in hats.


  fr. Many Times, But Then (1979)
  in If in Time: Selected Poems: 1975-2000
  [New York: Penguin Poets, 2001]