-from the third floor piazza-

westward from the third floor piazza

the views of the river are top rate.

one can follow the angling

rooftops of the houses running downward

like steppingstones to the banks

and the balled-headed cars, too,

the sun-blanched paint of them

revealing cancers eating into metal.

even the sparrows fly beneath us.

from the piazza, we can peer

downward into windshields,

to the bench-seats where neighborhood

young lovers grope and cling

before going inside to have their suppers.

what goings on!

and all this before we begin
hopscotching to the river!

our restless house is at our backs

as eastward, the hill rises like an angry blade

into the fabric of the sweltering "Spindle City"
moving beyond the precipice towards the blood-
thirsty "City of Whalers"— but 

from the piazza we see clearly

that the river runs north to south

from Taunton to the Atlantic.

In the evening when everything

is cloaked in darkness beneath

the magician's cape, we go inside.

In doing this we will have traveled  

the few steps into the bronzed atmosphere

of incandescent lamplight and the blue

phosphorescence of the television.