was "a colored subject"
&
the other paper ignored,
&
even now
the papers cannot get it straight,
one reporting the bullet entered her cheek,
the other that it entered her temple
(both say it exited from her neck);
she was on the operating table for four hours,
on the critical list the first day after;
by now everyone connected with the case
has repeated their story,
&
on simple matters
of fact the papers still do not agree.
The fact is I am flat on my back
with disc trouble, thinking of the facts
that you are dying of cancer
&
there is a full moon,
a harvest moon that is silver-yellow
&
not as Lowell
would have it, "radiant with terror," just a blank
look, one that Susan reproduces correctly
as man-in-the-moon moronic like the unfortunate
farmer's teenage son who came to help
load the fresh produce in our car, anxious
&
insistently being of use despite the [ather's low, "no, son,"
a hopeless
&
obviously well-intentioned retardate--
yet the moon may be seen as a warm emanation
or a frigid paleness by others,
as enemy, or friend
it hangs like a head
a moon for lovers, a moon for the dead: it can be
either
&
both or none of these, as a waning moon, or
she is mending, you are sinking, I am not presently
in
pain, the boy is undoubtedly smiling,
the farmer is saying "no" in a weary
voice, the moon is saying yes
&
no out of its gray
moon mouth that has been stepped on,
the papers never can get it straight
&
the error is self-perpetuating from day
to day in your "typographers' wasteland," it makes
a difference that one cannot get it straight.
4.
IX.
1971
Robert Vas Dias
