Racing down the corridor past doors with
numbers I don't see,
past people who would rather be
anywhere else than
in the hall with me.

These sweating faces, dripping hands, fingers
filed with golden bands in jewellers drawers,
down and in more corridors where faded pictures
***** their looks, past the racks of dusty books which
no one reads,
more beads of sweat
I'll get there yet or in the evermore
and another corridor.

Who makes these things?
who brings the corridors to entertain
me and the ******?
The pictures look at me with eyes, I
once mistook as being full of piety but
devilry is braided in their frames.
What names they call as I race headlong
down the hall.

At the end where all points lend themselves
to what we would prefer
I will no longer race through there, instead
I shall take some air
in the garden
with Maud.