Room of Return

Galway Kinnell

Room over the Hudson

Where a naked light bulb
Lights some coathangers, whiskey bottles,
Umbrellas, socks, poems, shoes,
A potted plant trimmed like the crucifixion,
From which, out the front window,
You sometimes can see
The Vulcania or the France
Or a fat Queen
Steaming through the buildings across the street,
To which every night
An alley-cat sneaks up
To slop a saucer
Of fresh milk on the fire escape
Washing down his rat,
Rooms crossed by breezes
Out of air conditioners’ back ends,
By the clicking at all hours of invisible looms,
By the shouts in the night-market, motors, horns,
By bleats of boats wandering the Hudson,
Room, anyway,
Where I switch the light on
After an absence of years,
Tiny glimmer again in the city
Pricking the sky, shelled by the dirty sea.