Days Spent in One of the Other Worlds

1. Arrival in One of the Other Worlds

2. Note Home on the Second Day in One of the Other Worlds

Could not sleep last night. Everything here

is deathly quiet. I lay in bed listening for wind,

but there was no wind. For birds, no birds.

Where you are, deafening silence is a cliché, I know,

but I swear my ears hurt this morning

as if the night had been filled with heavy bells.

I would have sold a finger for a cricket in the room.

The old, blind king asked how I slept, and I said Fine.

Have I mentioned that he has no eyes? I can’t tell

if he ever did. Yet this morning, I felt as if

he were staring through me, so I told a small lie. Fine.

What’s the harm? He’s the king of one of the other worlds.

3. One of the Ministers in One of the Other Worlds

Today the old, blind king introduced me

to a member of his Cabinet, “The Minister of Death

and Destruction.” The king instructed him to entertain me,

then left us alone. There was an awkward silence

before I told the Minister of Death and Destruction

how impressed I was with his title. He grew red-faced

and said that he only brings death and destruction

to spiders and ants. Then he said that his job

is killing him. That just the other morning he’d killed

a spider in the shower by washing it down the drain.

That he believed the water rolling down his chest was tears.

That the king is a bastard amused by the death of spiders and ants.

4. An Experiment in One of the Other Worlds

5. Magisterial Advice in One of the Other Worlds

The old, blind king tried to save my soul today.

He told me that I must make myself real. His hand

on my shoulder felt like the hand of a father or the foot

of an eagle, talons meeting midway through muscle.

Say that you know what all of this means, he said, without gesture.

Say that you can see the sky’s colors evenly divided

in the sharp grid of order, that each square means

“hope” or “joy” or “joyful hope” or “hopeful joy.”

I looked at his face for a long time. I can see

that you have no eyes, I said. He frowned, perhaps scowled,

and ran his hands absently around his waist, fingering his golden belt,

as if searching, out of habit, for something that was never there.

6. How I Know I Am Alive in One of the Other Worlds

Let me tell you about the old, blind king’s young,

beautiful daughter (big eyes, black hair, full lips).

Two days ago she fixed my eyes in hers as I walked by

her stone bench in the king’s gray garden. She was writing poems

about the colors of the sky. What does “azure” mean? she asked,

so of course I loved her. Yesterday I stopped and sat at her bench.

She said I cannot speak to you with her eyes and extended her finger

toward my face. But before touching me, she brought that finger down

to crush a spider crawling between us on the stone. Last night, as we lay

on her hard bed, side by side and staring above, she traced her fingernail

again and again around my nipple. I did not know she had entered me

until I felt the soft tickle of her nail on my filthy, throbbing heart.

7. Industry in One of the Other Worlds

Today the old, blind king showed me his Workshop

for the Construction of Truth, a long and narrow room

full of desks, at each of which sat a young man or woman

writing fourteen-line poems. Three black-haired priests

wandered among the desks, each holding a baton in one hand

and scissors in the other. When one of the industrious poets

paused to think, a priest walked up behind him and tapped

his shoulder with the baton, easy at first and then harder

until the young man began to write again. One of the women

smeared her poem with silent tears, and a priest quickly replaced

her draft with a fresh, empty sheet of paper. The king turned

to me, grinned, said, You must work to make yourself real.

8. Sonnet Written in One of the Other Worlds

I’m trying to write a poem to please the king

who’s old and blind and lord of another world.

He asks for sonnets, says that everything

must fit the form’s demands. His sheet’s unfurled

before me now, so I must make a start:

I sing to you, my king, and here’s my song:

I want to eat your lovely daughter’s heart.

I want to play this sonnet’s meter wrong

and save its truth until the very end . . .

But in this world the truth will never pass.

The old, blind king will never comprehend:

his silent censors cut each couplet ass.

9. Judgment in One of the Other Worlds

10. Gratitude in One of the Other Worlds

11. Why I May Stay in One of the Other Worlds

Today the Minister of Death and Punishment and the Minister

of Death and Reward asked me to look out my window and down.

I could see that the drop was miles. But look, said the Minister of Death

and Reward, Those trees down there will grow majestically in the spring—

they were planted long ago by the old, blind king—and you’ll see

their leafy boughs waving in the wind just outside your room.

It will look like a sea of green waves. I watched the feet

of the Minister of Death and Punishment dangle, and I thought then

of how I might step out of my window and into such a sea,

how I could float in its green waves forever, or drown in them forever.

The Minister of Death and Punishment said, You get to do what you want

in this life, and you get to do what you want in every other.

12. Last Words from One of the Other Worlds

I’m sorry that I have not written to you. I’m sorry

that this other world was not the other world

that could save us. I’m sorry that the old, blind king

is old and blind. I’m sorry that his young, beautiful daughter

has disappeared. I’m sorry for the spiders. I’m sorry

for the Minister of Death and Destruction and his many,

many tears. I’m sorry for my disparaging comments

about the priests’ tonsures. (Dear lord of this other world,

forgive me.) I’m sorry that, despite everything, everything

is still not enough. I’m sorry that this world is no better

than any of the other worlds. I’m sorry that this is the world

from which I must tell you Goodbye, goodbye, I’m sorry.