Alicia was not a girl, but a young woman from London, a frail poet with a squint and a roll-up in the corner of her mouth. She told me she had been staying at the Center for three months, at the expense of an American benefactor, writing and teaching. Despite the relentless sunlight and the hunger for it of the other women, Alicia had not tanned. Her skin remained remorselessly “Camden High Street in the rain,” as I thought of it. She was to show me the roof of the Center, where I would sleep. It was baking during the day and most likely cold at night, but it suited me, being secluded. I like the sky, though until now have lacked the time to “commune” with it.

While I unpacked my few things, Alicia opened a spiral notebook, coughed her soul out, tore at her nails with her teeth, and asked whether I minded hearing her poetry.

“Why not?” I said. “I haven’t had any contact with poetry since I was at school.”

“Where were you at school?”

“All over the place.”

“Read anything?”

“Toilet walls.”

She warned me: her poetry was mostly about things.

“Things?”

She explained that even here, “in the cradle of consecutive thought,” the language of the New Age and of self-help, now beyond parody, had taken over the vocabulary of emotional feeling and exchange. If the language of the self was poisoned, it was disastrous for a poet. This was yet to happen to objects without souls, on which she had decided to concentrate her powers.

“Give me an example,” I said.

She began with a poem about kettles and toasters. I liked it, so she followed up with another about her Hoover, and with a further one about stereo systems, which was unfinished. When I asked her to go on, she told me what the others were to be about—carpets, beds, curtains—and requested suggestions for more.

I changed my shirt, a moment I always enjoyed, and said I thought one about windows would be good.

“Windows?” she said. “What are you talking about?”

“What’s wrong with windows?”

She explained that it was “too poetic” a subject. Quoting John Cage, she said she was interested in the “white” emotions rather than the “black” ones. She needed to get past the “black” ones to the “white” ones.

“D’you see?”

“Not a word of it. Me, I’m only the cleaner.”

“That’s who I’m writing for. Cleaners and crooks—I mean cooks. Some poems open only for the ignorant.”

“I must be your man, then.”

She was looking at me. Her face was pale but unmarked, as though her despair had neglected to invade it. Yet now one of her eyes was twitching like a trapped butterfly. I wanted to go to her and press my finger against it. But maybe I would have just pulled it off and torn it to pieces. The poor girl must have fallen in love at that moment.