I like being in your apartment, and not disturbing anything. <br />As in the woods I wouldn't want to move a tree, <br />or change the play of sun and shadow on the ground. <br /> <br />The yellow kitchen stool belongs right there <br />against white plaster. I haven't used your purple towel <br />because I like the accidental cleft of shade you left in it. <br /> <br />At your small six-sided table, covered with mysterious <br />dents in the wood like a dartboard, I drink my coffee <br />from your brown mug. I look into the clearing <br /> <br />of your high front room, where sunlight slopes through bare <br />window squares. Your Afghanistan hammock, <br />a man-sized cocoon <br />slung from wall to wall, your narrow desk and typewriter <br /> <br />are the only furniture. Each morning your light from the east <br />douses me where, with folded legs, I sit in your meadow, <br />a casual spread of brilliant carpets. Like a cat or dog <br /> <br />I take a roll, then, stretched out flat <br />in the center of color and pattern, I listen <br />to the remote growl of trucks over cobbles on <br />Bethune Street below. <br /> <br />When I open my eyes I discover the peaceful blank <br />of the ceiling. Its old paint-layered surface is moonwhite <br />and trackless, like the Sea—of Tranquillity.<br /><br />May Swenson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/staying-at-ed-s-place/
