Paterson: Book Four, Chapter III, p. 193

Another Letter from A.G.

Dear Doctor:

I'm writing to you because you
have forgotten something
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I found it, walking the streets
nearest the River today
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Do you know the Bourse,
Doctor? Of course
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You know your town
as if it were you, sir -
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that is to say:
anatomically

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But that sound that reaches
from the Manufactory
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all the way down the channels
of streets to the very City Square
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Dear God, the River, and the
sound of it
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I wonder if you have grown used
to that which does not howl
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as the Falls here
are wont to

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I found the pubs, you know
the ones: off Mill and River Sts.
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Godwin's is the place I
most move about these days
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Quiet, as I'm sure
you know it is quiet, but
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This past Wednesday, as
I walked the Bourse to
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Mill, I saw a man
drunk and hanging out
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over a balcony, tip-
ping in a chair, al-
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most falling as the reek-
ing smell of propane
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leaking from a pipe or
stove somewhere in-
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side his house seeped
out from the cracks and the
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drains of the place, flow-
ing down the narrows
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of the alley, reach-
ing out to me and pour-
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ing into me until I could
taste it, on the back
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of my throat, thick but
sweet almond-gas swill
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of it, ah, even as
I moved on and past
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down the street
to my home

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Watching this man sway,
Doctor,
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I thought of you, of
what I found that was once
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yours. But the water is
running, Doctor, and I'm off
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to find what you found
in it at the start.
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I hope this letter finds you well,
Doctor. What you lost is not
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enclosed. But you will find it
if you run.

A.G.