Robert Conquest
Man And Woman
Sober, he thinks of her; so he gets drunk,
Drunk, he weeps for her. Drunker, he sleeps,
Waking in the small hours to absence.
The trees sway moodlessly to a blank wind;
Right communication with symbol and sensation
Frays off hotly into silence.
Certain bacilli cause worse pain,
So do the instruments of secret police torments,
Yet here’s the inexplicable quag
Into which all that towers fully founded,
Deepest assured, keels over fissured,
The universe torn up like a rag.
Other tensions rasp the brain and body
Rougher, stitch the tic on eyelid or in cheek:
Desperations of money, fears
Of torn flesh, of death. More real, you say?
Yet those are not the things break bedrock, strike the springs’
Profundi ties: tears. Yes, why the tears?
Page(s) 28
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