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Frank Bidart

Interview
Poetry

The Fifth Hour of the Night

The sun allows you to see only what the sun
falls
upon: the surface. What we wanted was what was elsewhere: cause.

                        *

Or some books say that’s what we once wanted. Prophets of
cause
never, of course, agreed about cause, the uncaused cause: or they

                        *

terribly did. Asleep, I struggle to stay inside sleep, unravaged by
heart-
piercing dreams—craving, wish, desire to remain inside, if briefly,

                        *

obliteration. I cleave to the voice of Poppea’s nurse:
oblivion
soave
.

                        *

Not frightening, the word
oblivion
as Oralia Domínguez, hauntingly clinging to the sound, in 1964 sings it.