Sunday Alone In A Fifth Floor Apartment, Cambridge, Massachusetts

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The Globe at the door, a jaunt
to the square for the Sunday Times.
Later the path you made has healed,
anyone may use it. A good day

for a fire. Fast clouds tug
their moorings of rain, bent
like a wet field in the wind.
It's almost dusk when you look out,

the sun falling, visible
beneath the curds of clouds.
Open the window. It's like leaving
the door to the shower stall open.

A draft and a few bars
from the Linz Symphony wend
in, like an exact crack in a damp wall
of white noise, the dial tone, the breathing

of sleepers, the dub-dub of a car's left
tires smattering the manhole cover
on Ware St. The music of others
is almost enough, but you can put on

a record to be sure, to make you want
to dance late in the day
in a light that seems to come from inside
the cloud bellies, like the rash that breaks out

just below the skin over a woman's breasts
as orgasm comes on, and on, and goes.

© William Matthews