-A click away-

It gets more difficult with time. 

I tell myself not to look

But each morning over tea and crumpets,

Over Bach Oratorios, and Oreos

Split in half like cymbals just after impact,

Under the canopy of stucco, two bulbs out, 

In all kinds of weather, I go to Facebook.

I see that someone has posted
A Poussin landscape with figures.

Two of the figures are seen in the foreground
As they carry the dead toward burial.

Responders to the post opine

With intelligence, emotion or by simple
But effective "likes" which allow for their inclusion
Albeit in the most fundamental opinion allowed.

I'm glancing out the window considering

The Portuguese guy across the street

As I have nothing to add to the discourse on Poussin.

It's the posters who drive the conversation

And each is driving a fast car, leaving me in the dust.

Across the street, the guy is yelling up to his wife
Who leans out of the tenement's third floor window

Just to the left of the pulley which holds a taught line.

He’s in the yard, it’s starting to rain
And the wind is building.

He’s aggravated and she’s imploring aggressively.

A bed-sheet has half-

Fallen from the clothesline and is tangled

Tightly around the top of the line’s pole.

She can’t pull the sheet in by the pulley
While it’s wrapped-up like that

And he's in no condition to climb.

He pokes at the sheet with a broomstick.

He slaps at the sheet with the head of the broom.

She’s screaming in Portuguese:

“Ir-para Casa! Sopish Caldene!”—

And it’s raining like hell.

The sheet’s too heavy, waterlogged
Like a genoa sail skimming a heavy sea,

And returning after a quick piss, I notice he’s gone.

The yard's empty and the storm continues.

His wife has closed the window

But the torn sheet’s a lost cause,
Its one free corner, flapping violently in the wind

Like a torn spinnaker.

Later, as the vinyl siding drips, I'm left to ponder

Whether or not they're eating together
In front of the television,

If he ever sees her as he once saw her,

If she remembers the man
Who vowed at the altar to always be there
And maybe this is why I can't spend time this morning
Considering Poussin on Facebook.

                                     Corner of Bedford & Eddy, Fall River.