Previous Issue: Spring/Summer 2010

Evening  
Adam Tessier

It isn't surprising, but unexpected: in summer, how evening
just happens, how we aren't looking for it.
 
Yesterday, you didn't say anything
all afternoon, but later
 
armfuls of foxglove in the tub when I drew the curtain.
 
It's a trolley; it emerges from the tunnel into seven o'clock
and a neighborhood we could never afford
 
to leave. Look at it: actual gas lamps lit
one at a time, and everyone's windows are open.
 
It's the beginning of a movie we've seen many times
over, starring the neighbors. One of them
 
preparing dinner in the eat-in kitchen, fussing
over the stove. The other looking out
 
at the street, noticing
the way the light falls, the way it falls in
 
like guests around the table, and then goes.

Adam Tessier is a curatorial administrator living in Cambridge, MA. His poems have appeared in Linebreak, Diagram and elsewhere. He holds an MFA in poetry from The Bennington Writing Seminars.