It is too early yet to be awake. In a dream
just now I walked
through a house I once lived in
everything shabby now varnished and glittering
a cruel man now perhaps kind

I wake thinking of that day I saw
the would-be suicide
running up my fire escape
Where are you going, I asked him
I don’t know—

Then the sirens’ jangle, firemen racing
through my bedroom, the miraculous
rescue, the man floating
down a ladder, as if his wish to die
were helium

I see him there on the rooftop, squatting low
amid ailanthus seedlings, cracked asphalt
warm beneath his feet, horseflies
skipping about, little cherubs: waiting
for the moment called Now

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Copyright © 2008 by Susan Bernofsky. All rights reserved.

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