who sleeps behind my bed. A few layers

of board and plaster between us, we each live

alone-I with stacks of books, she with nightly

men. I hear them, inches from my deconstructed

novel, inside worrisome dreams; they rock and slam,

they shake the walls, spackle dust on my headboard.

Mornings I drink tea, write thin lines, imagine

that she washes glasses, changes the sheets.

Perhaps she also ponders half-familiar

photographs. Across her balcony might drift

tears of paper, wadded-up thoughts, incomplete.

Consuming fat from long-ago meals, shades

perfect their hibernation until hunger

nudges the sleeper out. At times, in face-like

ripples of a swollen moon, or mirrored

behind the rows of overhandled fruit

where I shop, I acknowledge her form.

Reaching out for purple plums my hand brushes

hers. Our tired and solitary eyes meet,