Poem of the Week

Its glassy look suggests one hypnotized

from gazing at the house across the street

as if into a mirror: a man half-crazed

with disappointed love. Look how distraught

after the vivid morning he appears

now in the gathering shade of afternoon,

how filled with darkness, how the darkness pours

like flames in silence out of every pane

across the unmowed lawn into the trees.

But when the stifling air grows vague with dusk,

and the sky is overwhelmed with cloudy towers

that blot the stars like battlements of dust,

the boy inside turns on the lights and sings

the sympathy of not inhuman things.