21

All the light is radiating from the lemons
in the fruit bowl in the middle of the table,
which some avocados, pears and kiwis

enhance with green, copper and velvet patches.
Light falling from the window finds focus there,
everything arranged round this ideal centre:

the china cabinet, the buffet, the empty chairs,
solid walnut pieces, polished, almost black,
striped with reflections. The newspaper and the mail

are white and light-brown rectangular
patches, tossed casually on the corner, where
the cat has come and stretched out on them.

25

We walk through streets we know
or used to know…the eye
collides with walls that were not here

when first we ventured out,
unwittingly, into this labyrinth;
a vacant lot which now we see only

in recollection, was over there,
where a tower of blue glass rises, a cube
of hardened sky. But a parking lot

offers an opening ...