From an American Journal

I know that some part of me is wayward and clings to its sense of brokenness. from The Journals of John Cheever

1

All these mornings,
we get up as if real and usual men - cheerful,
bored, lustful - pacing into every brightness.
But the yard-door of our days is unlocked:
outside stands a dark-coated stranger,
the woman cries when she looks through the window,
at a street-corner the tennis-player speaks obscenely to the boy...

I am different, I believe:
my son comes back happy from the library,
it's Spring, and people in the gardens are mostly healthy;
I walk the labradors through the woods, and afterwards
close the curtains, thrust stiffly into my wife.
Tomorrow is the Sunday of the Resurrection.
Nothing shows us we're losing.

Monday, I'll watch a man who stands with downcast eyes,
...