[from L’Heure Bleue, or The Judy Poems]

I am not very clever today.

There’s a strange rain falling:
slow drops, yellow sky.
 
 
The scientist makes us
take personality tests.
This seems beneath him.
 
 
Given two options,
I’m troubled by the worry
I could get this wrong:
 
 
You feel involved watching TV soaps.
You trust reason more than feelings.
 
 
For Jack, it’s a chance
to build a new Jack.
Every type is plausible:
 
 
The Warrior. The Diplomat.
Why not just choose?
 
 
I’m stuck on a graffito
I saw this morning
in the café bathroom—
 
 
a simple kind of thought,
but I had thought it mine.

I wake up with bumps

all over my legs.
They don’t hurt or itch
 
 
but are very ugly.
I can think of nothing
but my ruined legs.
 
 
Shostakovich
would “quote” himself,
mockingly—
 
 
no way to know
which parts were
the real S.
 
 
When I can’t sleep
I try to imagine
impossible things,
 
 
to force myself
into a dream. The mind
keeps slipping back
 
 
into simplicity, memory—
not consciousness, just memory
in real time.