Shot Glass

I'll never forget the day, this beautiful woman
right out in the office said I was "sneaky":

I didn't know I was sneaky: I didn't feel
sneaky: but there are mechanisms below our

mechanisms, so I assume the lady was right:
living with that has not helped my progress

in the world, if there is any such thing,
progress, I mean: also it has hurt my image

of myself: I have used up so much fellow-
feeling on the general --- all of which I have

forgotten specifically about, as have the
fellows --- no offices, no clear images or

demonstrations --- I don't understand why that
one remark holds its place ungivingly in me:

and now to talk about it, admit to the world
(my reading public, as it happens) that I am

scarred by an old, old wound about to heal and
about to bleed: this may do confessional good

but I will no longer appear perfect to others:
conceivably, that could be a good thing:

others may be scarred, too, but who wants to
be like them: one should: perhaps I really

do, because lonely splendor is devastatingly
shiny but basically hard and cold, marble

walls and glistening floors: one comfort,
which I am reluctant to relish, is that the

lady is now dead --- surely, I am sorry about that,
she was a person of intelligence and

discernment, which is one reason she hurt me
so bad --- well, but I mean, she won't hurt

anybody else: she probably did enough good
in her life that the Lord will forgive her:

I am trying to forgive her myself: after all
she left me some room for improvement and

a sense of what to work on...


- A.R. Ammons