We are all, you might say, waiting for those barbarians
even though we lack particulars, even an approximate
profile, mug-shot, card-index summation, press cutting.
Nothing exists but the vague sense that it should,
that our time is up, we have held on too long,
making the same points, using the identical words
to describe this fearful Nothing that is gathering somewhere
on a dusty plain where the frisky horses caper in a circle
and the bold Leader, hirsute and unsmiling, swings into the stirrup
