If he only could go away without going away And have everything turn out just as it ought to be Without rings or hiding! He told himself “I’m all right. I’m not like Bailey. I wouldn’t sleep with a girl Who never slept with anybody before And then just go off and leave her.” But it was Melora. It wasn’t seducing a girl. It was all mixed up. All real where it ought to be something told in a sermon, And all unreal when you had to do something about it, His thoughts went round and round like rats in a cage, But all he knew was⁠— he was sick for a room And a red tablecloth with tasselled fringes, Where a wife knitted on an end of a scarf, A father read his paper through the same Unchanging spectacles with the worn bows And a young girl beneath a nickeled lamp Soundlessly conjugated Latin verbs, “Amo, amas, amat,” and still no sound⁠—