Waiting and Finding (by Jack Gilbert) While he was in kindergarten, everybody wanted to play the Tom-toms when it came time for that. You had to run in order to get there first, and he would not. So he always had a triangle. If you had a triangle, you didn't really make music. You mostly waited until the tambourines and Tom-toms went on a long time. Until there was a signal for all triangle people to hit them the right way. Usually once. Then it was Tom-toms and waiting some more. But what he remembers is the sound of the triangle. A perfect, shimmering sound that has lasted all his long #life. Fading out and coming again after a while. Getting lost and the waiting for it to come again. "Waiting" meaning without things. Meaning love sometimes dying out, sometimes being taken away. Meaning that he often lives silent in the middle of the world's music. Waiting for the best to come again. Beginning to hear the silence as he waits. Beginning to like the silence maybe too much.

After Ecstasy Next Morning On the phone to her- The all of it. reduced to words- How lovely the way we redefined wrong. Yes, she agreed, then slowly in a hush, it went beyond pleasure, beyond fun. They laughed without gaiety. I feel numb, he said, and hung up to begin what he'd later describe as a long slide into himself. Conversation with others seemed like chatter. Work felt like work. He'd call her up and say things like Holy Shit, which she understood to be accurate -Stephen Dunn