Small Room in a Hotel

Small Room in a Hotel

In this cool cube of marble
I am valid but invisible
As an image caught in a camera
But not yet reproduced.

My reappearance from confinement
Is that of a lavatory Houdini
Except that no one notices
And the wonder is reduced to a trickle.

How many men have died at stool,
Bent in that vain rictus of hope
That gives to their flushed features
The terrifying squint of a Samurai?

Between philosophical reflections
And the final rebellion of blood
Is the same fine line as between shadows
And the ignorant earth which casts them.

Why are we so eager for shadows?
Is reality so hard to bear?
That our root is in earth which
Returns to earth, and is our sleep?

Each day, wherever we are,
We should rehearse this cancelled debt,
Like a sacrifice whose incense
Ascends into the purity of thought.

John Fuller