a hand seen
suddenly atop the blue gazing
globe, spruce
a century old, fingernails
black, the porch
bathed in evening sunlight
and myself out of bed, moving to the window
down the body-length of the bed –
white flannel sheets holding
the long hairs of recent lovers like static,
many-coloured memory –
halfway to the window, the storm
pane newly unlatched for spring, speeding cars
near me. sunlight
pouring down the balustrade.
a hand I have never seen before,
a voice speaking through the door to a another woman
whose body I cannot see but whose voice I recognise as
an upstairs tenant’s. as
I hear their plans for the weekend
and their plans for summer
the baseball in the mitt on my windowsill
rolls down onto the floor.
a mausoleum: the thud
conjures death-thoughts
in me, death-fear at the first glimpse of her face, flushed,
radiant. she stretches her hamstrings anyway,
keeping balance with the gazing globe,
black running tights
black fog through the flyscreen, ankles white as bone.
she sends out over the busy road
behind her a motion instinct,
the bare linden trees become rockets.
there is a thud in my room
when the baseball falls.
an echo comes out of it,
rapping, hammering
louder than a drum.
the rapping wills her head to turn
to witness the disgrace,
the hammering never weakens.
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