Across Convent Avenue, five floors up
a woman hangs her clean laundry to dry
out three adjacent windows—one piece
at a time. I glimpse her green turban
sailing from room to room like a tropical bird
determined to locate a palm tree—
method is everything when you try
for the impossible. All night her lights’ abrupt
mirage wavers from behind garments that
give way, one soft-limbed shape to the next,
absorbing this high washed air, white petaled
dark, water breeze pooling against silent metal
casements that look straight onto our lives—hexed
by journeys, charmed back by the tasks we work at.