Susan Stewart, "May 1988"
The layoffs and ransacked apartments, the thrust toward the sycophant's hour, the gone world of hope and opinion, the delirious choice, the anarchic old flag. The hard life of soldiers and patrons, the new ways of taming the poor, the sad throughts of civic officials, the down-and-out dives, the unheard reveries. The specific ways of changing our focus, the tawny cats that haunt every dream, the emigres in their sporty new cars, the decision to stay, the regretful paid leave. The plain facts of deferred transformation, the emphasis on the family and pain, the grace notes of deliberate communion, the small affectations, the heart-to-heart names. The egg that breaks on the way from the market, the straw that breaks as it breaks down the load, the meter that stops and the battery stalling, the refusals of time, the spies lost in the snow. The last turn on the floor of that memory, the last thought as they go toward the door, the last things are the ones that endure, O the hardships of war, the distortions of shame. As it turns out, it turns out the same, as it turns out, the engine has stopped, as it turns out, the occasion has ended, the lights are turned out, the gates opened, the rain.from The Forest, 1995 (Univ of Chicago Press).