THOUGHTS DURING AN AIR RAID Of course, the entire effort is to put myself Outside the ordinary range Of what are called statistics. A hundred are killed In the outer suburbs. Well, well, I carry on. So long as the great 'I' is propped upon This girdered bed which seems more like a hearse, In the hotel bedroom with flowering wallpaper Which rings in wreathes above, I can ignore The pressure of those names under my fingers Heavy and black as I rustle the paper, The wireless wail in the lounge margin. Yet supposing that a bomb should dive Its nose right through this bed, with me upon it? The thought is obscene. Still, there are many To whom my death would only be a name, One figure in a column. The essential is That all the 'I's should remain separate Propped up under flowers, and no one suffer For his neighbour. Then horror is postponed For everyone until it settles on him And drags him to that incommunicable grief Which is all mystery or nothing.