I bring myself back from the streets that open like long Silent laughs, and the others Spilled into in the way of rivers breaking up, littered with words, Crossed by cats and that sort of thing, From the knowing wires and the aimed windows, Well this is nice, on the third floor, in back of the billboard Which says Now Improved and I know what they mean, I thread my way in and I sew myself in like money.   Well this is nice with my shoes moored by the bed And the lights around the billboard ticking on and off like a beacon, I have brought myself back like many another crusty Unbarbered vessel launched with a bottle, From the bare regions of pure hope where For a great part of the year it scarcely sets at all, And from the night skies regularly filled with old movies of my fingers, Weightless as shadows, groping in the sluices, And from the visions of veins like arteries, and From the months of plying Between can and can, vacant as a pint in the morning, While my sex grew into the only tree, a joyless evergreen, And the winds played hell with it at night, coming as they did Over at least one thousand miles of emptiness, Thumping as though there were nothing but doors, insisting "Come out," and of course I would have frozen.   Sunday, a fine day, with my ears wiped and my collar buttoned I went for a jaunt all the way out and back on A streetcar and under my hat with the dent settled In the right place I was thinking maybe—a thought Which I have noticed many times like a bold rat— I should have stayed making of those good women Happy, for a while at least, Vera with The eau-de-cologne and the small fat dog named Joy, Gladys with her earrings, cooking and watery arms, the one With the limp and the fancy sheets, some of them Are still there I suppose, oh no,   I bring myself back avoiding in silence Like a ship in a bottle. I bring my bottle. Or there was thin Pearl with the invisible hair nets, the wind would not Have been right for them, they would have had Their times, rugs, troubles, They would have wanted curtains, cleanings, answers, they would have Produced families their own and our own, hen friends and Other considerations, my fingers sifting The dark would have turned up other Poverties, I bring myself Back like a mother cat transferring her only kitten, Telling myself secrets through my moustache, They would have wanted to drink ship, sea, and all or To break the bottle, well this is nice, Oh misery, misery, misery, You fit me from head to foot like a good grade suit of longies Which I have worn for years and never want to take off. I did the right thing after all.