The Inn

A little wine
on this deep wound
that opens in the evening
when outside the cars honk
and passerbys laugh
shouting to one another
animated by a gaity
incomprehensible to the one
who watches from behind the shutters.

He daydreams, suddenly absent-minded,
of that woman he met two days before
and murmurs her limpid name
to hear it spread through the bedroom.

Suffering comes from elsewhere,
what matter if is reflected 
in each word
he has learned a certain number of
things,
helped by aging,
noteably that it’s necessary to love
who’s with us, who goes before
and awaits us,
seated at the nocturnal inn.

Permission from Handsal Books (an imprint of Other Press LLC) to reprint "The Inn" from Last News of Mr. Nobody: Selected Poems Copyright © 2004 Emmanuel Moses is gratefully acknowledged.