Still Life with Fire Engines

Between fires,

they’re as still as a speckled pear

or a silver drinking cup

arranged on a damask tablecloth,

though their sheer readiness,

as they peer out of the station,

gives them a certain twitchy aura,

as if each truck somehow extended

into the space about an eighth

of an inch in front of itself,

where it soon will be for a second,

then out beyond all things still and composed.