And so I
How many have been woken in the dead
of nightmare by some dream-shattering yell?
How many felt alarmed? And so I fled.
How could I dwell
in a haunted house if it was not
the haven it once had been? And so
I threw old memories aside, forgot
the best of days, and from self-indulgent woe
scatter-shot in verse
clumsy images moulded from the clay
of insubstantial words. And so I rehearse
as if rehearsal postpones decay,
permission granted to bemoan
what little there is here now that you have gone.