She gave it with her living hand to me a copy of / The Master Letters with her living hand to me / Thick
with a thickness they I couldn’t say how many re- / printings later new copies have lost the
paper / They print them on is thinner now but it itself was new / She gave it to me new she must
have had it since / The book was new to her she must have kept it in her castle / She signed it in
the Little Castle that was where we were / For twenty years she must have kept it in her castle for
/ Twenty years Master I can’t say how long you’d lived there / Before I for a single afternoon came
where are you / To ask but I think now the castle followed you / And now you’ve taken the castle
with you to wherever you’ve gone / And must have followed you before she must have kept /
The book for twenty years before she with her living hand / Gave it to me a paperback still
glossy with / The printing date 4/97 still glossy beneath / The gloss or Master do they print
on top of the gloss / As we are all who walk on Earth are printed on the gloss / And liable to smudge
and disappear if touched / I ask you where are you to ask I might have called you after / I heard but
let me tell you first we were then under- / ground waiting for a train my daughter and me waiting for
/ An A or D to ride from barely Harlem almost / To 14th Street and then to take an L or walk
from there / To Union Square but now I’ve talked beyond the bounds / Of the story I was going
to tell you as a spirit talks / Beyond the bounds of the story of a body Master / I heard a
woman go under the train the sound it must / Have been her body getting crushed but the
sound sound- / ed like a piece of paper torn quickly the louder sound / Was voices diving after
it that was the sound / I turned to Master then I turned my daughter’s face away / I might have
called you after I might have said It sounded / Like paper Master where are you to ask do you know
now to / Whom she was Master the woman beneath the train / She must have kept that copy in
the little castle for / Waiting for not for me but who would be there when / The time came for
her love to cross the bridge from hand to hand / The book would for an instant make as it was
given / To who would be there I was when she with her living hand / Took the book down
from the shelf beside the sprig of heather / From the Brontës’ moors and handed it to me
a sprig that looked / Alive still of green heather from across the sea