UNCERTAIN OBLIGATIONS

This morning reluctance-you gaze on the street below;

people are in a hurry, they can't see five feet before them—

half in the air, half inside themselves or inside the wall;

wall bumps against wall-not a sound emerges.

A dust rag caught in a tree. I lost-he says-

all five of my keys. The other man looks at the cyclist.

The third enters the shoe shine parlor. The fourth will fall

before the cheap furniture store. The fifth

wrapped himself in three newspapers .You must gather them up;

you must take care of the coffins; you must find

their real name-one name-otherwise what will remain

from your large sign, ambitious architect-

white, with red letters, hanging high up

on the seventh floor of the new glass apartment building?

And what will remain of you who, with an ancient pair of scissors,cut

off

your five fingers that all may believe in the indivisible, and that you

may believe?