What This Window Opens OnAuthor(s): Denis JohnsonSource: The Iowa Review, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Spring, 1971), p. 13Published by: University of IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20157701 .

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WHAT THIS WINDOW OPENS ON

several of those faces on the avenue

are blossoming into that light thrown always toward them

off the interminable, blue

backstretches they gaze upon. and from what separate, enraged oceans

can they possibly expect

to save themselves, and for what? at times i suspect that among the trembling inner organs of a captured bird, people are climbing onto busses in the morning fog,

and other times i say, obviously this window opens

upon the seas and the blindnesses, it is from

this very window

that the signal will at last be issued for

the taking of our own lives.

and then again i observe

a woman, how the movements of her parts

conspire to propel her

from greyness into greyness, vague

injustices attending her

steps until i wonder

what

can they possibly mean, down there,

by their arms and their legs?? until i wonder

what the voices must mean when they are singing.

13 Denis Johnson

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