I thought that if I could manage it
I would wake up some morning
in the cold awareness of that castle
and not even realize what time
I was back to, except in the shiver
I might not expect a furnace
only extrude a foot to the near ice
of the stone (only there happens
to be a skin by the bed).
The windows are all closed
and there is ice around the lead
and no sunshine out there, as there
hasn't been since late January.
No servants. Five floors of stairs
to be negotiated in skin boots
down to the kitchen--everything
still cold, no one built a fire,
nothing to warm by, really no reason
for ever getting up, ice on the pot
of water--nothing to eat
except possibly a raw potato, no place
to wash--somebody (who?) should have
kept a fire going all night.
And where is she? She was gone
from our bed long before daylight.
It's not like she had a lover
nearby--there's nobody here.
Nobody coming. Nobody's been here
since mid-February when the riders
came in with the horses booming in
the snow. I might find her
wrapped in fur up in the tower
saying her prayer--which is constant--
for somebody to take her out of here.
Nobody's here and nobody's coming.
I will light a fire in the great hall
and sit there until she comes down,
which she will, since she would
rather talk to me than to no one,
showing her breath before her
like a little fire within.
You would think we could throw
a feast or something--to get
somebody here, but there's no one
to go out and kill a stag and no
pigs or sheep, and even if there were
there would be nobody to ride
forty or fifty miles bringing all
the guests in and nobody to
cook and serve. Nobody's here.
-- Gregory Corso. "Theory of Realism"