By Alden Nowlen

(1933-1983)

I used to broadcast at night

alone in a radio station

but I was never good at it

partly because my voice wasn’t right

but mostly because my peculiar

metaphysical stupidity

made it impossible

for me to keep believing

their was somebody listening

when it seemed I was talking

only to myself in a room no bigger

than an ordinary bathroom

I could believe it for a while

and then I’d get somewhat

the same feeling as when you

start to suspect you’re the victim

of a practical joke

So one part of me

was afraid another part

might blurt out something

about myself so terrible

that even I had never until

that moment suspected it

This was like the fear

of bridges and other

high places: Will I take off my glasses

and throw them

into the water, although I’m

half blind without them?

Will I sneak up behind

myself and push?

Another thing:

As a reporter

I covered an accident in which a train

ran into a car, killing

three young men, one of whom

was beheaded. The bodies looked

boneless, as such bodies do

More like mounds of rags

and inside the wreckage

where nobody could get at it

the car radio

was still playing

I thought about places

the disc jockey’s voice goes

and the things that happen there

and of how impossible it would be for him

to continue if he really knew.