All that summer I perched 
in my favorite battered once­white chair 
straining for a voice to boom out grand and perfect, 
grow from that dumb murmur draping 
my waking life, to tell me something true. 
But night after fan­cooled night, while anger rivered 
my childhood streets and the Milky Way the sky, 
while Mister Cat slowly scythed the neighborhood clean 
of any animal slow or dumb, passing cat or foolish 
rabbit, pheasant, yes, urban raccoon or opossum, 
who dared near the wild catnip patch out back, 

I wanted most for the physical therapy students upstairs 
to start screwing again with this month's boyfriends, 
crashing off couch or bed to hardwood floor and admonishing, 
slow down, dammit, slow down, oh, yes, 
while I held still, wondered if my wife and I 
carried to heaven as our neighbors did to earth, 
better congress than loud 
stereos dueling, driveway arguments over parking. 

Quiet below, listening to the other roommate 
upstairs creep closer, she spying, me picturing 
slitted doors, tossed rumpled clothing, one friend 
panting shallowly, watching two laughing others entangled, 
can I explain how little I knew, how little still, 
tunneled ever deeper into night, 
my tiny solar system revolving on the far edge 
of a huge, wide galaxy of movement, 
circles within circles within? 

That house is gone, the whole neighborhood, really, 
leveled for a greenbelt, given back to animals, 
but part of me still hangs there, second story, 
invisible above the ground, 
because that quavering squeak of wood 
beneath the roommate's secretive heel, 
that furtive glance to see if she's been heard 
while sneaking ever closer, 
that held breath, that muffled creak and pause 
was all I've ever understood about the soul.