My Neighbor's House Poem by Ian Blake

Until I stepped out to the ledge
to find out what the tile in the roof
was made of on the building next to mine,

and I stumbled, and my arm took a few
moments drawing back to reach the wall, I never knew

that beauty is panic,
the manic clacking; the eye’s communiqué
that time is lacking for the mission;
the dread of leaving early; the fear of never
getting to explore; the plea for an extension,
“shortly we’ll know more.”

What river flows in the caverns beneath my feet?
Who drinks in those taverns and who meets his lover
on the stone café patio just above the street and under
a red awning,
fawning over the play of her gait as she approaches
against the lines in the architecture?

Why did I not walk straight up and down
that street when I was secure?
It wasn’t beauty then, but
“shortly we’ll know more.”