"Getting On"

Because I could not help spring

When it came against the house

The birds took to the garden again—

And I feel, somehow, I’ve failed you.

And that cardboard smell

Of old pictures packed away

Cigarette-yellow in the afternoon

Will be the death of me, love.

Old records and martini dinners

And that face—that face

I sometimes catch in mirrors

(Yes, of course it frightens me)

But then what again, precisely

Am I supposed to feel

When the draperies they cease

To yield those soft, translucent pills

And this scraping

In my head’s like a drawer

Shoving its way down corridors—

Taking it floor—by floor—

I’m getting on without you, love—

But God knows it’s such a chore.