I Work All Day, And Get Half-drunk

One Of The Sadder Things, I Think, Is How Our Birthdays Slowly Sink: Presents And Parties Disappear, The Cards Grow Fewer Year By Year, Till, When One Reaches Sixty-five, How Many Care We're Still Alive?

Slowly Light Strengthens, And The Room Takes Shape. It Stands Plain As A Wardrobe, What We Know, Have Always Known, Know That We Can't Escape, Yet Can't Accept. One Side Will Have To Go. Meanwhile Telephones Crouch, Getting Ready To Ring In Locked-up Offices, And All The Uncaring Intricate Rented World Begins To Rouse. The Sky Is White As Clay, With No Sun. Work Has To Be Done. Postmen Like Doctors Go From House To House.

Only One Ship Is Seeking Us, A Black-sailed Unfamiliar, Towing At Her Backa Huge And Birdless Silence. In Her Wakeno Waters Breed Or Break.

It Becomes Still More Difficult To Find
words At Once True And Kind,
or Not Untrue And Not Unkind.

On Me Your Voice Falls As They Say Love Should, Like An Enormous Yes.