A HALF HOUR AFTER Poem by Mario Petrucci

you leave some al-
most thing starts : your
mattress impression stops

holding its breath - begins
to relax & swivel-chair
where you tackled

laces adopts that
strained angle of the clerk
requiring confirmation - then

i see through softly shut door
a house of pointers : your
draped towel on its rail

& bone scissors left
half-open there as though
simple addition of water could

jerk them to life : not so strange
then that a house should re-
member you with each

pine surface & glass
ornament its own sextant
keen for your one star to float

these bricks by - to hoist white
rooms thinned to canvas
by your sea-smell & i

no less join them : this
richer matter becalmed yet
seeming your merest breeze

might cast me off