Staying At Ed's Place

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