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William Matthews - A Small Room In Aspen
Work rating: Low

Stains on the casements, 
dustmotes, spiderless webs. 
No chairs, and a man waking up, 
or he`s falling asleep 

Many first novels begin 
with the hero waking up, 
which saves their authors 
from writing well about sleep. 

His life is the only novel 
about him. Mornings 
he walks past the park: 
Tai Ch`i students practicing 

like slow lorises. 
A room on the second floor. 
He`d dreamed of a ground floor 
room, an insistent cat 

at the door, its mouth pink 
with wrath he couldn`t salve 
and grew to hate. All afternoon 
he`s a cloud that can`t rain. 

There`s no ordinary life 
in a resort town, he thinks, 
though he`s wrong: it laces 
through the silt of tourists 

like worm life. At dusk 
the light rises in his room. 
A beautiful day, all laziness 
and surface, true without 

translation. Wherever I go 
I`m at home, he thinks, 
smug and scared both, 
fierce as a secret, 

8,ooo feet above sea level. 
The dark on its way down 
has passed him, so he seems 
to be rising, after the risen 

light, as if he were to keep watch 
while the dark sleeps, 
as if he and it were each 
other`s future and children.
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