Two lights, a K-mart, dog-leg-left
and there you are: a tour of sorts
with friends of yours, a joint that's smoked
with several more, and later on, when I look up,
uncomfortable at being high
in front of someone else's sons,
a soft, concerned attentiveness
you try to hide as you direct me
to my bed, a pumped-up quilt
of reds and blacks, a Mondrian,
hand-sewn, you say, by Roz,
your friend.
The room,
of course, is your room: the
iridescent gun-blue skis, the too-few
books, the dark, cascading window ferns,
the cat that bounds up on my chest.
with four soft paws and falls asleep,
not caring that I'm someone new
who'd wandered in, who meant
no harm, who'd dream all night
of wandering through another's house,
then get up early, say good-bye, and drive out
past the dog-leg-left and empty mall
as though he had another life.