ALL WE SAW
ANNE MICHAELS
LON DON • OX F O R D • N E W YOR K • N E W DE L H I • SY DN EY
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S O M E W H E R E N I G H T I S FA L L I N G
Somewhere night is falling S omewhere a man stands outside a church too bitter to enter, yet bound by doubt to that place S omewhere a woman fills a glass with clear water and flowers drink their last moments in the last light of the fields Somewhere a child stands next to a wall in the desert S omewhere there is a house with a portrait of Beethoven and a child who wonders if it is a picture of her grandfather Somewhere there is a boy learning to wait S omewhere, for the sake of his children, a man writes what he has seen S omewhere, for the sake of his children, a man will not write what he has seen S omewhere there is a son with the memory of a father’s touch on his back, giving him courage
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S omewhere a mother gives courage to thousands of mourners at her son’s funeral S omewhere a man measures the dimensions of the prison precisely Somewhere a woman plants a garden in front of the prison S omewhere thousands stand where once the square was empty Somewhere a cave is lit by a torch S omewhere there is man who walks beside us, without a hat, in the rain S omewhere a man reads a letter and folds it carefully into his heart Somewhere a man weeps for what he has found S omewhere between Paris and London, a man peels an orange on the train S omewhere a man waits in a train station with the taste of coffee on his palate S omewhere a man waits in a city for a woman who waits for him
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S omewhere a man holds out his hand before we know we need it Somewhere there is a room lit only by a painting as night falls S omewhere there is a man who is not afraid to live in a woman’s hope S omewhere there is a man who has not forgotten anything and has written it down S omewhere there is someone so close to you, there are no details S omewhere a woman’s gift has not been deepened but corrupted by loss S omewhere there is a man who has given away everything and stands in the rain, grateful Somewhere the dead are leaving a sign S omewhere there is a man who meets his late mother in Lisbon Somewhere a man makes soup for the village S omewhere a man tells a woman she is not as alone as she thinks and she understands she is precisely as alone
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Somewhere a man remembers a blue shirt left behind forty years before S omewhere a man inscribes the back of a photograph and dates it twenty years before either of them were born Somewhere there is a painter carrying a spare egg S omewhere there is a man driving away from the marketplace with cages of unsold chicks in the back seat of his Peugeot S omewhere a woman stops for petrol, thousands of white origami birds pressed against the car windows S omewhere on the shoulder of the highway, not long before he dies, a man opens the hatch of his truck and shows a woman his paintings, all imaginings of her body, how her skin feels against his mind S omewhere a woman wakes in the night and knows that no one will ever write a poem for her Somewhere a man answers courage with courage Somewhere a man fights for nothing Somewhere a man digs his own grave in the forest and waits S omewhere a man builds the room where his child will be conceived 32
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Somewhere a man and a woman leave a note in the rafters S omewhere a man and a woman leave the threat outside the door precisely in order to defeat it S omewhere a man wonders how many thousands of years men have lain with a woman just this way S omewhere a woman slips off her scarf without untying the knot at her nape S omewhere a man writes of that scarf and the fist of the knot against his back Somewhere rain is falling Somewhere a man is repairing the night, one word at a time S omewhere a man sends a message “spoken before hands ever wrote” Somewhere night is falling
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