Charles Simic

C E F O P T

Past-Lives Therapy

They explained to me the bloody bandages
On the floor in the maternity ward in Rochester, N. Y.,
Cured the backache I acquired bowing to my old master,
Made me stop putting thumbtacks round my bed.

They showed me an officer on horseback,
Waving a saber next to a burning farmhouse
And a barefoot woman in a nightgown,
Throwing stones after him and calling him Lucifer.