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[seamusd.livejournal.com]

Denis Johnson

Vespers

The towels rot and disgust me on this damp
peninsula where they invented mist
and drug abuse and taught the light to fade,
where my top-quality and rock-bottom heart
cries because I'll never get to kiss
your famous knees again in a room made
vague by throwing a scarf over a lamp.
Things get pretty radical in the dark:
the sailboats on the inlet sail away;
the provinces of actuality
crawl on the sea; the dusk now tenderly
ministers to the fallen parking lots --
the sunset instantaneous on the fenders,
memory and peace ... the grip of chaos ...

(from The Incognito Lounge, Random House, 1982)