The Whiteness

APRIL 1985

HILDA MORLEY

THE WHITENESS

Deep, deep under white now I longed to be

& in the earth digging deep, to come alive

again,

to find

a beginning

& the late snow came,

in April,

covering

the city,

blotting out whatever

came before: the madman

gesticulating even on Fifth Avenue,

then vanishing

& the lost men

in doorways, curled like embryos,

defenseless,

& the women hunched

over shopping bags all

night: a white

sheet covers them, an air of innocence,

a pause

in which there is time still

to get ready, time lost that

can be made up,

under this covering,

this whiteness