CommutingAuthor(s): Denis JohnsonSource: The Iowa Review, Vol. 2, No. 3 (Summer, 1971), p. 8Published by: University of IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20157730 .

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COMMUTING

We understand well that we must hold our lives up in our arms like the victims

of solitary, terrible accidents, that we must still hold our lives to their promises

and hold ourselves up to our lives

to be sure always they are larger, wholer, realer than we ourselves, though we

must carry them.

We on this train with our lives in our laps

are waiting patiently for the next moment

and maybe we will be lifted away by our lives as are the moments we rise up to hold with us, or maybe we will just slacken

above our drinks in the club car chatting baseball, all of us headed

to apply for the same job, all of us qualified,

all of us turning now into snowflakes

too delicate,

yet each holding in itself a tiny stark particle of darkness

and weight, the heart's cinder

turning over.

Johnson

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