Do you remember that feeling
when you finally find out what the melody is
that has been haunting you for months,
after you’ve heard it just once by chance,
only to be played all of a sudden
by the violas and cellos—an ostinato
carved into the black vinyl—as a farewell
to the kind of reserved innocence
you often only begin to savour
when it’s already too late? I do.
If only you had realised then
that you could survive on a single act
of desperation.
I have always suspected that the model autobiographer
would be a eulogist dwelling upon the preexisting innocence
and the final struggle to maintain its appearance, admitting that,
despite advising others to live with their eyes wide open,
he hardly ever dared to raise his gaze above the shadows
on the pavement, yet never asking forgiveness
for stepping on them.
Whenever I recalled my youth,
full of Dostoevsky, recreational carnality,
and conviction-laced twaddle,
all I could remember were the curtains
that granted me a sense of innocence.
But as time passes, I wonder: if I lived
up to my own past words, with age,
would doubts arise?
hidden pilcrow 