- We were talking about the great things
- that have happened in our lifetimes;
- and I said, “Oh, I suppose the moon landing
- was the greatest thing that has happened
- in my time.” But, of course, we were all lying.
- The truth is the moon landing didn’t mean
- one-tenth as much to me as one night in 1963
- when we lived in a three-room flat in what once had been
- the mansion of some Victorian merchant prince
- (our kitchen had been a clothes closet, I’m sure),
- on a street where by now nobody lived
- who could afford to live anywhere else.
- That night, the three of us, Claudine, Johnnie and me,
- woke up at half-past four in the morning
- and ate cinnamon toast together.
- “Is that all?” I hear somebody ask.
- Oh, but we were silly with sleepiness
- and, under our windows, the street-cleaners
- were working their machines and conversing in Italian, and
- everything was strange without being threatening,
- even the tea-kettle whistled differently
- than in the daytime: it was like the feeling
- you get sometimes in a country you’ve never visited
- before, when the bread doesn’t taste quite the same,
- the butter is a small adventure, and they put
- paprika on the table instead of pepper,
- except that there was nobody in this country
- except the three of us, half-tipsy with the wonder
- of being alive, and wholly enveloped in love.
jan 15 2021 ∞
jul 30 2022 +
jul 30 2022 +