Which Way to Row When There’s No Island in Sight?
That the dog barks in the neighbor’s yard
Is nothing unordinary.
The way the grass slaps the ground
Is not new.
There is nothing novel in the navy Nissan that
Grumbles past his door.
He does not pause to see the same kid lug it forward
At the same corner.
The brazen blue sky still hides itself on occasion
Behind the same confused clouds.
Nothing has changed in the way they amble away
Like the mastiff two houses west.
In his house the bed is made with the same
Sheets as always —
The hazy blue chambray ones too short to tuck
Below the lurching mattress.
When he calls out, still, nobody answers, and his chest still feels
Like the places between the mattress springs.
He still sings the hymns that mean nothing to him.
Lágnætti
It is that time of night
When things have finally settled.
Aside from gentle breathing
And the rare rustle of covers
Over a shifting sleeping body,
The only sounds left
Are the fireplace fan and the
Refrigerator’s hum.
At two in the morning, even clocks
Are afraid to tick. One person
In the house is yet awake,
But lies as still as the sleeping,
Staring with wide, unblinking eyes
At the dark, unchanging ceiling.
He breathes with the room around him
And imagines the walls beginning
To rock. Behind his eyes, the house
Is made unsteady on a sea
To swell him to sleep. He remembers
The small black rocks on the beach
At Napier, remembers the way
They rolled and clicked with the
Coming of the tide. His sight turns
The color of the rocks and
Something rustles his hair.