Mark Strand's "The Triumph of the Infinite"

The below may not be a poem, but it is also not NOT a poem. It is typical of the work in Almost Invisible, a slim but significant book of playful creations from the pen of Mark Strand, whose whole career, in a way, has been an attempt to understand (or perhaps to refute!) “The Triumph of the Infinite.”


The Triumph of the Infinite

I got up in the night and went to the end of the hall. Over the
door in large letters it said, “This is the next life. Please come
in.” I opened the door. Across the room a bearded man in a
pale-green suit turned to me and said, “Better get ready, we’re
taking the long way.” “Now I’ll wake up,” I thought, but I was
wrong. We began our journey over golden tundra and patches
of ice. Then there was nothing for miles around, and all I could
hear was my heart pumping and pumping so hard I thought I
would die all over again.

Excerpt from ALMOST INVISIBLE © 2012 by Mark Strand. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.


Click here to learn more about Mark Strand’s Almost Invisible.

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Read more of Mark Strand’s work in our Poem-a-Day eShort selection, Poems After Midnight, downloadable for your eReader.