Stanley Avenue Poem by Douglas Goetsch

A summer breeze lifts white gauze curtains,
carrying sounds of neighbors

unloading groceries, children playing
Marco Polo, a lawn mower in the distance

and the 96 bus snaking up Castleton.
None of it disturbs the naked woman

resting on the bed, her heel kissed by the sun
throwing its lattice of shadows over the rug

and up the wall, the angles sharpening
as the day drifts forward aimlessly as smoke.

But a timeless afternoon demanding nothing
disturbs the half-dressed man lying next to her

even as he strokes what he loves most—
her milk white flank curving to her hip.

He's working on joy; it isn't going well.
Either he doesn't feel it, or he feels too keenly

joy's transience, knowing the only thing
that can possibly follow good weather is bad.

It would be easier to dwell in certainty,
depart this house, go back to his own,

a shack he should start readying for winter.
It's not really a home—leaving is more

his home. Each time he hears the horn
of the Staten Island Ferry three miles off

a voice says You missed it.
But the woman on the bed is small

and beautiful, and the sight of her—
resting with an undefended heart—

fills the man with wonder, as though
she were performing a deadly stunt,

every muscle in her body slack
except her mouth, kissing him back.