Working on Sunday

 

The night’s first drink, mixed with jackets and gloves unremoved,

sings with ice and glass in tonight’s most steady rhythm.

The empty house, with its tense occupation and ever-struggling furnace,

captures the traveller in its familiar atmosphere, like the protective figure of

a young man’s fantasy.

Two clicks and a light comes on.

Condensation-slick hands reach for the telephone, a reproduction of an old rotary in clunky red plastic.

Chilled water drops on the carpet.

 

The river, down the hill behind the steep backyard,

flows unnaturally, in different directions at different times of the year.

A pot of spring water boils on the electric stove, wetness on the pot’s bottom

sizzling against the worn black coils awakening.

The slowest of the four burners.

 

The radio.

Miller hits a three.

Sonny Clark spills his drink on the keys.

 

…boiling water begins to overflow.