The Inner Voice

Dark days, the next-doorwindows gild at 5p.m.;their patriarch died last year;my window faced his room.Tinsel of gloam:we pour a Sapphire,close a novel on Vietnam,switch the light on.You took in sobscoming over the lawn last nightthrough the oriel.You wanted to rush out,fight, lie.A.m. makes wallsof apertures; theydirect our steps,break fieldsinto glass.I stood outside to hear her laugh,the actress in the rental;once her phone was cradled,the television made her windows rust.How can I explain?We're invisible when brightest.

Charles Jodoin was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1935. His volumes include Walls (1975), A Packet of Zodiaks (1978), Stones for the Cathedral (novel, 1985, adapted to film, 1988) and Windows (1994). He divides his time between Shorehead in Rhode Island, and Calvia in Majorca.