Gray this morning, pigeon-gray, governess-gray,

not military.

Wake hungover from last night’s lecture;

the couple spoke of war, their faces glowing slightly.

Two women sat behind me, holding hands.

—I had forgotten what this was like, said one.

—How beautiful your hands are, said the other.

The child coughs all night;

I give her orange syrup

that sticks to her hair,

then look out at the coins of leaves and lamplight

on the stubble street,

and sit within the gray

of not deciding how to use the time,

the gray between decision

and the first step.

Think of E. already up, jogging.

Summon courage, like a moving van.

Better to have lived a life of action

like the woman said.

Better to have waved from trains at the bourgeoisie

instead of thinking thinking thinking

with this mottled gull of irony

above my head,

cawing, garbage-mouthed;

better to have cured the fatal contagion

or smuggled the letter 

than to sit like a sparrow among sparrows

trying to focus on a shaft of motes . . .

well! begin the list for Thanksgiving,

begin the errands in the brain,

the small temporal negotiations:

go down to Youngs,

start throwing things into the wire basket,

tell Jean “Happy Holidays,”

holding the pear in one hand,

the yam in the other—it is gray

with a simple point at both ends,

like a story,

love the way she lifts

the clear sack onto the scales,

chatting as she presses the buttons of the register,

it rings behind the suit of armor—

Good Cheer! Good Cheer!

and things slide on the belt like days on the calendar,

bags of hard berries, blossoms and herbs,

the bird with its ankles clamped—

the chilly, plucked skin,

the cave to hold the bright, good-for-you parsley,

the crumpled bread—

(and will our guest rage, again,

“No more poems about sunlight!”)

Outside in the drizzle

the woman will ease her baby

into the carseat, pushing its stomach

to hitch the straps over the flesh.

Who will reward her infinite weariness?

Who will glorify her?

I will says the housewife rain.

I will says the comrade sparrow.