I feel nothing this morning
except the low hum of the ego,
a constant, shameless sound behind the rib cage.

I even keep forgetting my friend in surgery
at this very hour.

In other words, a perfect time to write
about clouds rolling in after a week of sun
and a woman beating laundry on a rock
in front of her house overlooking the sea—

all of which I am making up—
the clouds, the house, the woman, even the laundry.

Or take the lights strung in a harbor
that I one saw from the bow of a sailboat,
which seemed unreal at the time and more unreal now.

Even if I were there again at the ship’s railing
as I am sitting here in a lawn chair, who would believe it?

Vast maple tree above me, are you really there?
and you, open cellar door,
and you, vast sky with sun and a fading contrail—

no more real than the pretend city
where she lies now under the investigating lights,
an imaginary surgeon busy
breaking into the vault of her phantom skull.

 = Karen Marek