Charles Simic

Past-Lives Therapy

They explained to me the bloody bandages On the floor in the maternity ward in Rochester, NY, Cured the backache I acquired bowing to my old master, Made me stop putting thumbtacks around my bed.

They showed me, instead, an officer on horseback, Waving a sabre next to a burning house, And a barefoot woman wearing only her slip, Hissing after him and calling him Lucifer.

...

No One in the Room

And here I was asking About some child I saw on the street Carrying an Easter Lily.

It was spring then. She came my way In a crowd of turned backs And emphatically Blank faces, With eyes of someone Who sees Through appearances – And she didn’t like What she saw in me.

Was it alarm or pity? I always wanted to know. No hurry replying, I said to no one. It’s...

Car Graveyard

This is where all our joy rides ended: Our fathers at the wheel, our mothers With picnic baskets on their knees As we sat in the back with our mouths open.

We were driving straight into the sunrise. The country was flat. A city rose before us, Its windows burning with the setting sun That vanished as we quit the highway And rolled down a dusky meadow Strewn with beer cans and...

Wooden Church

It’s just a boarded-up shack with a tower Under the blazing summer sky On a back road seldom travelled Where the shadows of tall trees Graze peacefully like a row of gallows, And crows with no carrion in sight Caw to each other of better days.

The congregation may still be at prayer. Farm folk from fly-specked photos Standing in rows with their heads bowed As if listening...

The Late Game

That sleepwalking waiter Carrying a tower of plates Is he coming to our table, Or is he going to walk right out of the door? He’s going to walk right out of the door.

A baseball game is being played Under the lights In a small field across the road. It’s gone past midnight Because the score is tied, And now someone’s hungry In the near-empty bleachers,

In the...