Lying Awake Watching a Lighted Window

mccorkle 45 James McCorkle Lying Awake Watching a Lighted Window Across the street the light is still on at dawn In a high window overlooking the harbor; but from here We can only see the arched facades, the courtyard, A factory smoke-stack, and that single lit window, the light Left on suggesting as many possibilities of who might be there As what the view of the harbor from that window encompasses, And of all the scenes we presume that room holds The one we settle on is where someone waits With a light on, as if the light could reach into The harbor's waters, measuring distance in the slow beat Of clocks, the hands moving as slowly as white sails On a windless day across the water, arrival always farther And farther, the sails casting no shadows as no shadows Cross the window or warm yellow walls inside the room. Only light comes from there, no radio music Or late night television, no incessant telephone Or child crying; perhaps by accident it was left on And in turn by accident it drew us toward it like music Coming from propped open doors of some bar, until we passed, The jazz going softer among the hard buildings, Like a light wavered by distance; and later as in a film noir A light rain washes the noise, the torn newspapers, Traffic away, leaving the streets as black as the harbor, So that even the window's light sinks into the street Without a reflection or glimmered trace, the black streets Like a flood-tide from the harbor sweeping through The city without warning while everyone slept, The waters vanishing by morning, not even leaving stranded The curious striped fish that circle the pilings Feeding off the barnacles and almost translucent crabs. 46 the minnesota review Even our desire leaves something behind, A pair of gloves or a book left in a strange room To be recalled again and again, or music that fits Someone's face from long ago, a memory that suddenly Comes between us, like the lit window noticed only This one night, haunting the face of an otherwise dark Building, the light coming across the street Like a long sentence describing a secret, but is Instead only fragments, inconsistencies, the longing For a silhouette to cross the room and switch off The light or footsteps returning from the street, open A door and the window going more quiet than it ever was, Or something to assure us of the patience of that light, That it doesn't mean the cruelty of waiting or someone Else's hand recalled, disguising yours sweeping across my back, That it doesnt carry these expectations of old films But remains itself, knowing its own path out of this city. ...