On a New York evening of thin tedium
A woman with blue eyes and some feeling read
A poem; while the city like a drum
Heavied her voice. Casually, she was dead

A little later. I recall and cannot find
The poem. It was a poem then,
About a clock that ticked and would unwind
In an old house, and strike out nine or ten

While sparrows chaffered and feathered on outside.
By Thomas Hardy. Three quatrains.
We were not friends. We were polite. She died
In a meagre way, I think, of minor pains…

And in the deckeled edges of his thick
Books I have looked, but I cannot find
The poem. Still the clock does tick
Somewhere, and the springs unwind.

(And the insignificant woman, and the dull, polite
Evening…the subway crammed and stale…)
Goodnight, goodnight, goodnight, goodnight, good -
         night,
Woman and poem in limbo.
                                             Detail, detail,
Of the infallible city of our failure, drawn to scale.