Strand

• LIKE A LEAF CARRIED OFF BY THE WIND

  After leaving work, where he is not known and where his job is a mystery even to himself, he walks down dimly lit streets and dark alleys to his room at the other end of town in the rear of a rundown apartment house. It is winter and he walks hunched over with the collar of his coat turned up. When he gets to his room, he sits at a small table and looks at the book open before him. Its pages are blank, which is why he is able to gaze at them for hours.

  — Mark Strand, Almost Invisible

  2 février 2016

• HARMONY IN THE BOUDOIR

  After years of marriage, he stands at the foot of the bed and tells his wife that she will never know him, that for everything he says there is more that he does not say, that behind each word he utters there is another word, and hundreds more behind that one. All those unsaid words, he says, contain his true self, which has been betrayed by the superficial self before her. ‘‘So you see,’’ he says, kicking off his slippers, ‘‘I am more than what I have led you to believe I am.’’ ‘‘Oh, you silly man,’’ says his wife, ‘‘of course you are. I find that just thinking of you having so many selves receding into nothingness is very exciting. That you barely exist as you are couldn’t please me more.’’

  — Mark Strand, Almost Invisible

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  2 février 2016