MS-UoR-1477-10

[0040] in the old green holeproog^f coat your father left you places
you hadn't ^to pay to get in like the Public Library that was ano
another great thing free culture in foul weather far from home
or the Post Office that was another another time

[0047] always winter
then endless winter year after year as if it couldn't end the
old year never end like time could go no further that time
in the Post Office all bustle Christmal^s bustle in off the street

[0047] when no one was looking out of the cold and rain pushed open
the door like anyone else and straight for the table neither
right nor left with all the forms and the pens on their chains
sat down on first vacant street and were taking a look round for
a change before drowsing away

[0050] perhaps fear of ejection having
clearly no business in the place to say nothing of the loath-
some appearabⁿce so this look round for once at your fellow
bastards thanking God for once bad and all as you were you
were not as they till it dawned that for all the loathing you

[0050] were getting you might as well not have been there at all the
eyes passing over you and through you like so much thin air
was that the g^time or was that another time another place an-
other time

[0053] in the Library that was another ^{another place another time} that time you slipped
in off the street out of the cold and rain when no one was
looking what was it then you were never the sx^ame after never
again after something to do with dust something the dust said
sitting at the big round table with a bevy of old ones poring
on the page and not a sound

[0056] ^{[⁁]not a sound} only the old breath and the leaves
turning and then this dust whole place suddenly full of dust
when you opened your eyes from floor to ceiling nothing only
dust and not a sound only what was it it said come and gone
was that it something like that come and come gone come and
gone no one come and gone in no time gone in no time