RICHARD MCCANN

Letter from the Ground Floor

I'd like to tell someone something about myself for instance
the girl on the steps when I said It's hot today I like it
when it's hot and she said Oh you do well not me so much
Of course there are other things too some relating
to the dead who stick around a lot of the time anyway especially
at night when I'm sitting beneath the Chinese floor lamp
scribbling things down that sound like their voices
How can I confide in them when they know everything already
I would like a sister not that I've had one though I can see
us sitting at a table drinking coffee our heads bent close
I'm full of love I love the world I'm telling her and she says Oh
my goodness because she can see right through me how blood pumps
through the four chambers of my heart threatening the membranous scrim
of my well-known birth defect the borderline atrial septal aneurysm
I pledge myself forever to transparency
even if I am still sitting here alone like always
not in a good mood not in a bad one either
the sun pouring through the window scrubbing
the walls to the color of milk that luminescence
In the Bible people were lonely though they could wait
for a visitation an angel fluttering down to hear them
or even better yet to whisper a secret in their ears