W. S. Merwin was born in New York City in 1927. He is the two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning author of dozens of books of poetry and prose, including Poetry for Migration: New and Selected Poems, winner of the 2005 National Book Award. His other awards include the Tanning Prize for mastery in the art of poetry, the Bollingen Award, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, and the 2006 Bobbitt Poetry Prize for Present Company (Copper Canyon Press, 2005), as well as fellowships from the Rockefeller and Guggenheim foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts. Merwin lives in Hawaii.

2009 PULITZER
PRIZE WINNER



2009 BEST OF THE
NET FINALIST

Accompaniment

by W. S. Merwin

The wall in front of me is all one black
mirror in which I see my hands
washing themselves all by themselves
knowing what they are doing
as though they belonged to someone
I do not see there and have never seen
who must be older than I am
since he knows what he is doing

People on couch
To continue reading please sign in.
Join for free
Already a reader? Sign In