Severely Clear
Blanketed, couched mid-afternoon,
I shut my eyes.  On the other
side of the house, my sweatshirt zipper
ticked in the dryer, went silent

a few rotations, returned—tap
tap inside the humming appliance.
I liked it.  How it lulled. 
Then James Wright arrived:

I have wasted my life. Then the paused
video in my head, the hostage
kneeling in sand, knife to throat.
I opened my lids, and there between

the living-room curtains, behind that
narrow gap of glass,
a hummingbird floated in cold
October light—vanished.
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