-
Nothing Happened
- University of Wisconsin Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Nothing Happened If I promise not to want anything, will you explain our accident? I wanted to write you a letter on the train but I missed the train. In the cold I thought of this poem, the cold and not just the cold. Before I knew you, in Bristol, a stranger’s hand was bold enough to touch my gloved finger, test beneath the knuckle where a wedding ring might sit, bulging wool. Either I was careful not to speak, or else I gave myself away. Either it was snowing, or it was not, and you were away somewhere, seeing a film, breathing in the blue light of strangers. Leaving a lover, once I said: think of all the ones you have not yet met who will love you— as if, even then, they were struck with the knowledge of what waits, -49- always seeing themselves in shop windows, reflections spoiled by passersby. I knew then, or thought I knew, what it would mean to touch you. But then our taxi was hit from behind. We were fine in the little lie moon, fine in the backseat, behind which flickered glass. Nothing happened. Or else I saw you for what you were. -50- ...