as if it’s always that time of day when everything stills
and i am nearly as naked as the light
i stand at a window and wonder if it is dark enough yet
for my shadow to be cast onto the street
and touch each streetlamp on like a hand’s half-hearted caress of a piano’s keys
though i have stopped drinking the air tastes like wine
i bend over pose myself like a woman take pictures to prove
no one else is in the room a book a folded bed sheet
i pick these up to test the weight of my solitude
before great love comes great emptiness the streets fill with a fragrant silence
and breath ripples out from a central point
as if from a great distance i am a sexual being a proclamation or a prayer
hard above the earth my shoulders tone their empty bells
outside there are only more windows you can hear the ringing from far off
announcing a wedding a death or another hour more time
my loneliness is not unique but it is the most precious thing to me
