Helen Hoyt

From “In a Certain City”

WASH from me all my weariness, waters;

Wash from me all my thoughts and purposes;

Wash from me all my desires and dreams and hopes,

And drown them in your old monotony!

Oh, take me from myself and let me lose myself!

Let this incessant churning against the rocks—

This clumping, clumping, clumping of the water—

Wash over my brain and wash my brain away!

Till I am left at last empty of all that I was,

All that I knew or was or wished to be:

Left empty and content and uncontending;

Languorous, and numbed and lulled asleep.