Poem in the Manner of Wallace Stevens as Rewritten by Gertrude Stein

If night were not night but the absence of night
an event but not the same event twice then I would be I
and this would be nice very nice as I write I write

you down you write me back I write you a letter you write
me one better and there go you and here come I
where you and I may meet may fight but here there is no night

and I see you see me and if then better than if one might
if one white had struck all yellow and blue and black and green
and all rolled into a ball of white yet here there is no night

here you read the letter as written not the night
as performed and this would be nice you and I and nothing between
the same event twice a ball of white as I write I write.

—David Lehman

David Lehman’s next book of poems, When a Woman Loves a Man, will be published in 2005.

Originally published in the summer 2004 issue of Boston Review.