Against the Evidence: Selected Poems, 1934–1994

With Others

Thinking I am caught in the body of a fish. If I am the fish itself this speech is the sound of water escaping through my gills and like allfish I will be caught in the mouth of a larger one or be netted or die of being fish. Thinking that I am caught inside, a person with a right to freedom as I've been trained to think, my thought is another kind of net because this right to freedom is a torment likebeing caught in the body of a fish. With Others When I see fish swimming in schools, I'm very sad that we must stay apart in this only world we have between us. I see looks exchanged among men and women, lips to bodies, and when they part, I think I am surrounded by a loud wailing in the air. I raise myvoice in grief too, my one identity with others. 98 \ Poems of the 1970s ...