John Berryman   
      The Dream Songs   # 29  
  
      There sat down, once, a thing on Henry's heart  
so heavy, if he had a hundred years  
& more, & weeping, sleepless, in all them time  
Henry could not make good.  
Starts again always in Henry's ears  
the little cough somewhere, an odor, a chime—  
      And there is another thing he has in mind  
like a grave Sienese face a thousand years  
would fail to blur the still profiled reproach of. Ghastly,  
with open eyes, he attends, blind.  
All the bells say: too late. This is not for tears;  
thinking.  
      But never did Henry, as he thought he did,  
end anyone and hacks her body up  
and hide the pieces, where they may be found.  
He knows: he went over everyone, & nobody's missing.  
Often he reckons, in the dawn, them up.  
Nobody is ever missing.  
   
   
   
  
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