On Lines from Lizzie, and Leaving
(An Elegy for Poetry Night)

"I didn't get lost, not once"
I heard someone say
But I, alas,
I have been lost too many times . . .

Several times abandoned dreams
Things I'd love to do, yet
Married am I, or so it seems,
To one life and track

But still, always, forever
Pulled by the Faustian titanism,
The desire to grasp all
And live

And my little shop in the sûq
And to love
And be loved
And be encompassed in her arms

That they will never let go
Nor be cut off
Oh, if only it were so
And I were young and free

Yet with a faint whimper—
Not with a bang—
It came to an end,
The grand institution

That is Tuesday night
And which embodied my hopes
And nourished my dreams

Without inheritors we leave it—
Poetry Night and "the au Lait"
And no one was there
To feel her cry
As with a faint whimper went goodbye—

Oh, that I could begin again . . . .
But it is irrevocably gone