You are an idol of stone You do not move, you stand at the doorway and watch You do not talk You stand at the doorway and watch When you thunder downstairs to your mistress Your wife sits blue-eyed on the bed That is old and ugly, its wood full Of red insects that bite, but you Will not let her sell it For you think it is just fine
When you drive away with your mistress There is laughter in the house There is a board-game Of fickle fate and try That your wife and your children toss dices upon And there is so much chatter and so much sound All red things crawl back Into the deep deep dens of the bed That your wife got from her own house And that you will not let her sell For you think it is just fine
When you laugh, it is like storm Sounding through the fingers of the city And you make so much noise, it startles the sky It makes the fat dead TV wince at its past It makes the gruff old drawers never want to move again And you are always here Such loving god: We cut the stone from which you came Into pieces, pieces, we carved so many of you Now you are in every doorway And you do not move
When you return from your mistress You are happy You put the new TV on, loud and the news Of the city flood the house You are a news yourself You cough like a steel glass falling in the silence of the night When everything is sleeping, you cough like its bouncing That goes on and on, and like its spinning stop You cough and you chew on the furniture wood And you make so much noise
She cannot sleep
Well, after, you are still; grey-eyed and corpse And the insects come; and they do not bite stone