America One Might Think Of

By evening, we're both of us home again, supposed
to make dinner, but now you're telecommuting
and I'm stuck in my thought - search engine
all its own - so I bundle back up
and I forage the streets for a sign or a sound. Thought: Is

this the America one might think of?

Blur of a doorknob,
curving and pyrite, turning
or returning,
where one appears
tall citizen of the hallway;

scrape of the key (copy
of a key - cut at the hardware
store down the street
from the Japanese
Restaurant) in the dark;

a window of trees, vinyl,
wires, wall-mounted meters;

windows of halls;
steps down stairs;

a man
on the street, trying things
with his feet, to see how a stone
might resound on the ground,
how the ground might resound;

continual strings of the winter-brown
branches, rooftops, and towers
that light up the valley
air, over the sleep-black
hills;

girl
chatting idly, homebound with bags;
the drift and the slip
of the lamps over bodies,
cars grunting over

line-locking grids
of nests along highways,
flowing
and branching; in a
kitchen, a bowl

of glass plastic
near the sink,
with apples
and lemons,
Hass avocados,

a plum; fridge
of chilled wine,
juice, leftovers
--pomegranate seeds
and rice, fragments

of olives, salt,
in a Tupperware box -- greens
we should use soon -- too late
tonight, I guess cereal would suffice,
and the milk's digits suggest

it's still alright (on that ice-blurry
plastic, where once I saw you,
your shadow, converge
from the doorway -- turning
or returning);

white paint on the shutter
as if digital bitmaps
glowing as I come up the walk;
or maybe they're the white wings
of an old-time cottage still,

warm light, weathered
along the well-painted
road; knock of
the sidewalk,
voices and feet,

clamor and climbing,
wheels, bags, and keys;
the return to a room
with walls, windows, door,
in the middle of ...