Not an Ars Poetica, Not an Aubade, But

by Jennifer Sutherland

it was Monday, and now it is Wednesday. I’m still 

in bed and reading about lemons. Reading about looking 

at lemons, fruit in various states of peel or dress  

or ripeness, teetering at the edges of the tables  

where they rest. Qualities of light. I think I’ll go  

for a walk this morning, not too far. Just once 

around. I think I’ll try to write when I get back. I think  

I’ll go to the grocery store for apples and coffee. I sleep  

now beneath two windows that seem elevated because  

I’m on the basement floor, and the glass looks out  

onto a parking lot. Lately I leave them up all night,  

and at three a.m. I wake and hear a bird, just the one,  

singing to himself; he can’t know that I’m down here,  

listening and looking into the dark. So I won’t blame  

you if you mistake the point, the allusion to Keats, after  

all, the simple intimacy of a shared ecstasy not unexpected  

in a poem, but I don’t know how to tell you the truth