You in the living room You on a Tuesday afternoon A breeze seen when the curtains move
You by the window with both feet up on the couch Where you sit and you read and I watch you
From the office the sunlight frames your silhouette I think of lighting fireworks, I think of pirouettes I idly write down observations on the scene Like do the blueprints name the rooms alone? Do we name them on our own? We hardly live in there
You with a book propped on your knees A breeze seen in your coffee steam
I’m in the office thinking back to rules of poetry It’s fourteen lines, the last two rhyme, what does pentameter mean?
You in the living room Legs bent at forty-five degrees
I write AB AB, try to find your rhyme scheme I look for objects on the desk with which to sculpt your image best What would I name this could I paint it “Woman (reading)?” “Girl (at rest)?”
I remember it so well watching you shifting your weight, turning the page, I can see it all there Inside a living room where only I live and never go in A role in name alone
And I pause where I am for a second when I hear your name Sometimes I think I see your face in improbable places Do those moments replay for you? When I’m suddenly there and then won’t go away When you’re sitting in the living room reading for the afternoon Do you put your book down look and try to find me there?
Sometimes I think of all the people who lived here before us How the spaces in the memories you make change the room from just blueprints To the place where you live
When you leave here When you go from a home You take all that you own but the memories echo
On hardwood floor in the living room Tore the carpet the scratches below that we found And the wine stain on the couch We got drunk and decided we’d still try to move it around And I can’t tell what the difference is between the ones that we made and the ones that we didn’t make They all conjure images still Where you sit and you read in the sunlight aware that I watch