“A free-verse 20 line poem, unrhymed, in the style of John Ashbury's early poems in "The Double Dream Of Spring””

Between the measured chance of an afternoon  
a thin glass pauses on the ledge, unsure if it’s waiting  
or merely acceptable as decoration.  
Sun, dull as the voice in old museum corridors,  
pushes its demands through the window—  
there is no new arrangement, only the sluggish reordering  
of what was set down and quickly forgotten.  

A murmur builds near the edges of the rug,  
almost a name or the hope of one,  
felt through a slipper pressed to the carpet’s nape.  
Nothing here holds, not the air’s hesitant tremble,  
not the commas strung in the hesitant letter  
that froze halfway between intention and regret.  
Even the clock’s face—a small lake  
bearing the weight of someone’s indecision—  
leans toward the window, then away, in slow deliberation.  

Somebody left a book open,  
its pages cupping the dust in pale hands,  
while outside the forsythia, too certain for this room,  
flings its yellow certainty unapologetically  
into the vague light,  
not knowing it interrupts the double dream  
with small, pointless clarities.

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