The 42nd Parallel

The Camera Eye (4)

riding backwards through the rain in the rumbly cab looking at their two faces in the jiggly light of the four-wheeled cab and Her big trunks thumping on the roof and He reciting Othello in his lawyer’s voice

Her father loved me, oft invited me

Still questioned me the story of my life

From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes

That I have past.

I ran it through, even from my boyish days,

To th’ very moment that he bade me tell it

Wherein I spoke of the most disastrous chances

Of moving accidents by flood and field

Of hairbreadth ’scapes i’ th’ imminent deadly breach

why that’s the Schuylkill the horse’s hoofs rattle sharp on smooth wet asphalt after cobbles through the gray streaks of rain the river shimmers ruddy with winter mud When I was your age Jack I dove off this bridge through the rail of the bridge we can look way down into the cold rainyshimmery water Did you have any clothes on? Just my shirt