A Small Room

My job: visions of dark futility. I see myself dancing on the water, dancing in the light, but there's a dark tug at my feet, a voice in my head reminds me: 'it is impossible for a man to dance on the water.'

My job: to absorb other people's pain. I see wads of dark pain, pain like mud, sliding down my body in little riverlets. My body is golden, sunny, untouchable. The mud cannot soil me.

My job: a judgement, a punishment. The mirror tells me, I am on a train, the train moves relentlessly forward, I cannot stop the train.

A boat, docked at Deptford, England, 1593 -- 'The Scourge of Malice.' This boat navigates the oceans still. A simple, plain description of a life: 'a great reckoning, in a small room.'