She closed before him like a woolen drape.
He tried to draw her open with his words.
"Of course," he said, "if I had known on time—,
didn't we see a play on that same theme,
that rainy day when you wore those red boots
that went up almost to your knees, and we
ducked under my umbrella ... afterwards
you didn't want to go home right away,
so we went to Bob's Burgers, and your eyes
reflecting in the window looked like cars,
so we talked about places we had been,
and the next morning I woke up in awe
and thought, I have found it, this is the world
as it is meant to be, the dream is real—
which was true, but reality breaks down
like pages, sponge, or pavement over time;
being real is no bulwark against change
and loss; we're made of stage and loss and time
and"—from the curtains came a sharp "Shut up!—
I know all this! Why do you have to preach?
You're not making it better!" He tried three
times to reach through the cloth, but all three times
she moved away, leaving his hands to grasp
just warp and woof and the uncounted shift
of air, the shift that gulls us every time.