In this room where the toilet is wrapped
with a ribbon, where the refrigerator
clears its throat and hums,
where the television clarifies
the wallpaper, the song of maids
making beds lingers
into the evening, its refrain all linen
and vacuums.
I move a chair to the window
and watch stars turn over their engines,
blast on their lights,
drive into the weep hours
when I will break my body’s fast
on bread and coffee,
when I will shower the dead cells
into the guts of this building,
when I will walk on water,
when I will become a new man.
About the AuthorPeter E. Murphy has poems in Commonweal, Confrontation, Cortland Review, Mudlark and Urban Nature: Poems about Wildlife in the City. He is the founder/director of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway held annually in Cape May.
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