From Inside

The kid drops the ball in the alley each night —

third floor up, unhurried, alone.

I hear it through the window, the slight

irregular beat of it, a tone

you stop noticing after a while.

I work inside the sound the way you work

inside a creak, a truck. It's the style

of evenings now. Sound, pause, the quirk

of the arc, the return. One night

I looked up and the alley was quiet.

I couldn't say when. The flat light

of the end of the day, no riot

of color, just the hour going gray.

I sat longer than I needed to.

The window open. The screen. The way

a room feels larger when the sound it knew

has left. I turned back to the work.

The ball somewhere behind a door.

The kid upstairs. The ordinary murk

of the evening. Nothing more.