And So It Goes.

At 4:22 am, the world is well asleep, and I have watched nearly every light turn out in the city. As each becomes extinct, I wonder about the points of light on which human interaction hinge. Turns of phrase, intonation, diction. A whispered word into cartilage that unfurls a velvet lobe. I think of William Carlos Williams' poem "The Red Wheelbarrow" and the line "so much depends upon” and I wonder what determines dependence.

Everything is a deal. We are all ambassadors carrying suitcases. I bring nothing but insomnia, a dry mouth. Clean fingernails and red-painted toenails. I am alone. I am silent. And as I am, the house, too, is silent. This is the deal we have made.

And so in this house, whose silence is signed, dated, the world is beginning to feel impossible. For how can I possibly navigate it when so much depends on variables whose identities invariably lie in eyes of the beholder?

As light after light turns out across the city, people in their apartments or their houses pad softly wearing bathrobes and socks from kitchens to bathrooms to bedrooms where they sleep alone or next to someone else. And for those who sleep next to someone, deals are made as breathing becomes measured duet. Alone, moving from darkness into light, I break the deal with my house and turn on some music because so much depends on words, on sound, on a melodic distraction to pull me from the tangle of my thoughts, which race faster as the break of day nears.