In the Waiting Room

In Worcester, Massachusetts, I went into a barbershop, and the woman was putting a sign out, a purple sign, that said: Open for Business.

I was feeling for the feeling that was in you like something stored—as if it were a half-grown child. And all the men watched me.

A world that seemed so small—like a map—the ribbon of ocean between the lighthouse and the city; I thought even about the weather.

Outside, they were great—the size of a fish and a whale; they called the fish with a whistle that was thunder but sound that was almost impossible in the air, among the rocks.

Then I walked inside, and all of this frightened me. I didn’t hear only what I was hearing, long before it seemed to happen, and I waited for it to be true. The trees were starting into bloom; the clouds were falling. I stayed there.

I waited for them to change back—that other thing. Some kind of spring must not have happened a long time ago. I thought it was outrageous, I thought it was something I wanted only to remember.

But outside, I saw it at last—thealarming world. The woman had dropped the sign: it fell into a puddle, and I heard it, but I was absolutely sure it would change everything— even the milkweed. Out on the street, I could move again.

And as the finishing touch to a hair-cut, I concluded with an air; I walked away, aware of the sky’s great rise, almost vibrating in the balloon of the sun. And all that splendid history? Going back to all that water? I sat still and watched the men.

The world’s wide enough for people to drown in, but their faces were all turned toward me, or rather, toward a cloudy anniversary.

Yes, she was absolutely sure it would change everything, even the milkweed. I know it was already dead, that long day in autumn when I first saw it. And when I came back, of crucial things that have happened to me.

• Elizabeth Bishop