I sit calmly editing, another hour, that chapter that I am finally getting liked When the sirens go, the helicopter, not one, Many in Manny Hover around.
My building. But not only.
The whole area.
Something is happening in the Man’s city, I think, as I get my sleep ready
I’m supposed to worry and feel incapable of closing my eyes
Because anything can happen any minute now,
The misfiring neurons would make me incapable of lots of stuff…
So I guess I don’t care in a purely French way, And if I am not caring, what should tell me — my brain, Then it’s not my brain that wants to talk but — theirs.
Those who want me to bleed so that the grass under me Will have something to drink. No way! Yes, it is my very own idea of slipping off the pier But not a bridge, in a spectacular jump of cooling down The racing heart excited, eager, thrilled by its own liking Not a bomb. Or a bridge. Or an unfortunate flight. I am not a fan of dying this summer, Man. I might be fanatical about living my own page right now.
There is something fiercely alive in the refusal at the heart of this poem. The world may insist on fear, danger, and all the stories of what might happen next, but the final choice remains deeply personal: to keep living one’s own page. That last line carries the whole poem forward.