THE UNWILLING GUEST
-If
I open the shades
You will see layers and layers of freshly cut
Plate glass, light splintering
The streets from a million windows.
And
0
the people! Everyone talking, laughing, dining out,
But you cannot hear them. Here
is
one window
Filled with dancing couples, and in another
Four children are playing cards, and in that window
I
think
I
see the horseshow at a concert:
The usual pearls and gloves, white shirt front,
Naked shoulder, and minutely printed on a folded play-bill
Held in a woman's hand,
Romeo et Juliette.
801
And in the windows
Everything to sell: the latest inventions
In
copper wire, spun brass, gun-cotton, steel,
Even uranium, each almost perfect of its kind,
Sharp, clean, reflecting light-O a million lights,
Flood lights out of the dark,
Cross-beamed, white, yellow, red against the sky.
Shall
I
open our window?
-No.
-Everything looks
As
it has seemed for almost fifty years,
A trifle overbright, but ingenuous, cheerful,
Mindful of holidays: The Alexandrian city.
Do you remember Alexandria?
-No.
-Pharos?
-No.
-If
I draw the shades
It is as peaceful as Pharos before the tower fell.
But we, of course, are on a different island,
Hearing other rumors, if we choose to hear them,
