On the Elevator Going Down
A Caucasian gets on at
the 17th floor.
He is old, fat, and expensively
dressed.
I say hello / I'm friendly.
He says, "Hi."
Then he looks very carefully at
my clothes.
I'm not expensively dressed.
I think his left shoe costs more
than everything I am wearing.
He doesn't want to talk to me
any more.
I think that he is not totally aware
that we are really going down
and there are no clothes after you have
been dead for a few thousand years.
He thinks as we silently travel
down and get off at the bottom
floor
that we are going separate
ways.
Tokyo
June 4, 1976
źródło: June 30th, June 30th
o źródle i prawach
tekst z archiwum "american dust" (brautiganarchives.xyz); z tomu "June 30th, June 30th" (Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence, 1978); wpis oznaczony w archiwum jako przedruk
11.06.2026