I'm speaking to you from the silence;
I'm opening a dream door
to the place where I live.
This is the living room.
This, the small study.
And here is the bathroom.
The sink is porcelain smoothed
and stained to look like onyx.
The shower stall seems bottomless.
“There's something wrong here,” she says,
“Something's wrong with the floor.”
Then Andrea stood staring at it.
“I'm not sure I see what you mean,“
I said, “It's level; it's not cracked;
it has no tar smears.
It's a good floor.”
The floor is common tile
squares, each cut into fourths
by an "x."
I'm just an idle singer,
I have no patience for
the metrical mystery.
So a floor that is level,
which gives you sound support,
I call that a very good floor.
Andrea said, “Maybe you know
something I don't. But
it just doesn’t feel right.”
Just then I looked
at her shadow
& it was the same as mine.
And I remembered how
I had spent a good half hour
purifying the bathroom.
And I also remembered
how it had taken darkness
to train me
to sing for the light.
22.VI.84
