Christy looks up from her toes,
pink this time, fumes enlarging beyond
her feet, beyond the couch,
up into the loft of the small house
on Orange Street, which is a street
in name only, the mill having long ago
closed down. Only her father’s house
is occupied, and the shut-in, Mrs. Lasker,
whose voice box is a now a robot
from too many Camel cigarettes.
Still, the street is home to Christy,
her father long dead has left her this at last:
a silence, and a solitude that she felt
when running. Always behind her, her mother,
her lovers, her many jack-a-napes,
those that were stones to her. For now,
there is no noise, no wind, no friction
from passing cars, passing trucks.
For now there is only the high of polish
in her nostrils, falling light outside her window.
For now there is something like hope
stirring in the lonely, like a cheap luminary
there is light, and danger, for Christy knows
to keep the flame upright, to keep from getting burned.
