No One Suspects the Days

Kary Wayson

Flickered a minute before I sat and stayed, as if sight became
itself the candle on the table, the white-capped bay, sails
directing the day east to west across the windows.

There’s a sound for that boat cutting a white line across the water.
There’s a barge parked in the middle with YANG MING on the side.
The boat keeps going—behind the barge—now it’s—no, never mind.
In this way

the days. They’re gods, difficult
to remember. Difficult to remember
there’s a person who is a pilot who is flying that small plane south right now, so
far away that now we can no longer see
or hear it. There’s a person in it.

The cat makes a fat slot between the pillows on the couch.
He and I have witnessed the weather change from sun to something other,
then sun again and rain. Under a different window sits a dog
—on the porch of that huge yellow house
which is inhabited by just one man as far as I can tell. The dog

seems bored, and, like me, who sits all day inside,
transmits an air of waiting to be let in.