Watching a Woman Read Poetry

You’re reading poetry. I can’t imagine you anywhere
but here. Sun sets and clutters the buildings with
music. Yes, colours are music and soft voices and emotions
flung across time’s tapestry like a comforter.
Cuddle up and digest the day turning into memory—
a midnight snack of arguing over cloud lions, peaches,
the direction between one point and the next—straight line,
although a lingering curve is sensuous. You’re reading
poetry. I can’t imagine anything beyond the sound of a drill,
the gasping compressor, how wood swells with changing
weather, dust distributed unevenly with each opening
of the loading dock doors. I know how grain inhales stain
as though it’s putting on a dress, a tux, a pair of socks.
You’re reading poetry in a voice I associate with nursery rooms,
library back corners, a tet-a-tet between two absolute
universes dancing at opposite ends of an opulent room—
a gentle pat on the back in the middle of a rush hour crowd
waiting for the subway—a smile from the woman standing
in the rain—the sound a memory makes when it returns. Forever.