The clock here is quiet.
Into the rain's applause,
a woman rises
fatigued. Tablets
dissolve in a glass by the bed.
The wind lifts, branches
animating inconsonant darkness.
She undoes her gown,
lays it over the bedpost.
Seductive leg hair. Almost
dawn, she makes coffee like that.
Low thunder, glints
of lightning, the dog's
concern. Rain on the roof,
friends walking across my grave,
her mother told her, that's all
I listen for.
And why not the hiss and wake
of cars on the wet road
bursting into transparence under tents
of streetlight, winking out
into afterglow. Glances that catch
anonymous faces at windows
in early lit houses like her own.
This way she drifts off, mesmerically.
The bathtub overflowing.