A Bookmark by Tom Disch
Four years ago I started reading Proust.
Although I’m past the halfway point, I still
Have seven hundred pages of reduced
Type left before I reach the end. I will
Slog through. It can’t get much more dull than what
Is happening now: he’s buying crepe-de-chine
Wraps and a real, well-documented hat
For his imaginary Albertine.
Oh, what a slimy sort he must have been—
So weak, so sweetly poisonous, so fey!
Four years ago, by God!—and even then
How I was looking forward to the day
I would be able to forgive, at last,
And to forget Remembrance of Things Past.
This poem was selected by Jeff B. (Readers’ Services)