Scrim

David Ferry

I sit here in a shelter behind the words

Of what I’m writing, looking out as if

Through a dim curtain of rain, that keeps me in here.

The words are like a scrim upon a page,

Obscuring what might be there beyond the scrim.

I can dimly see there’s something or someone there.

But I can’t tell if it’s god, or one of his angels,

Or the past, or future, or who it is I love,

My mother or father lost, or my lost sister,

Or my wife lost when I was too late to get there,

I only know that there’s something, or somebody, there.

Tell me your name. How was it that I knew you?

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