In the Permanent Collection

To a Friend, on Living Alone

37 TO A FRIEND, ON LIVING ALONE Last night while I stood just inside, my hand feeling the door rattle, as whoever was knocking, probably wanting only to sell me cable service or candy, banged again, and I wondered whether to click the lock, alert the fist under its pounding that I was there, scared, I thought of you. When we met again on the steps to the building after getting into different strangers’ cars, the relief on your face was beautiful beneath the streetlamp. As an art school friend said, Honey, you can’t have clair-obscur without a bright light. And tomorrow, your eyes aqua like the pool of a drained fountain, or a pale electrical-storm green, you can have the cold moonlight of cucumbers in phases on the cutting board, their taste of wet grass. ...