To understand nothing finally but the sly betrayals,
the way the body suffers indignities at rest
or responds to the lightest touch in sleep;
the way we mooch across the carpet in shoddy slippers
with a cup of tea, as though that tea might save us.

Last night I walked the tenements of every hour –
bedroom, toilet, kitchen, dammit – surprised
by the modicum of space, the frankness of fridge and door
and the cold resorts; stood unverved in makeshift lights,
then snapped them off to a scorch of dark.

Only in glimpses can we know what we are born for;
all morning the back door stands wide in alarm
on the ease of rain that is pardoning the garden,
the wind chimes jostling for their claim on sound.