Daybreaks to those gray
Voices pushing out
The dark’s darker
Voices. And the way

Adoze at times in Kyoto
To the nudgings of a neighbor’s
Television and the set
Picking up the radio

My parents always woke to
Morning passing through
Morning on
The other side

Of the wall
Of the world
So early. All
Of those voices

Pushing back
The night as they must
Black into black
The news going on

Out
As it ought
And in coming in
By way of those thin

Pulsed voices saying
On most days Yes it’s all right
Everything held together
Through the night

The world is just
Where you left it
Out there you must
Go out in it. Increasingly

The news
Doesn’t it
Comes like this
Bodiless

And over blue
Curved reaches the voices clearer
Though farther
Linking us to

Our leaders and voter
Profiles gain
And loss the roaming walls
Of local storms our falling rain

Forests the murmur
Of distant hunger
The murder
Of some public

Dignitary
One of ours and yet
The name not
Caught.

The dead
Pyramid largely
Under us and in their mounting
Numbers would rise

Airing complaints
Apologies second
Thoughts saying Still
Uncorrected

The old mistake
But we’re sorry
To wake you we’re
Sorry and you must wake.

This Issue

June 16, 1988