All books have gifts.
This book gives me “enfiladed rooms.”
Yes, how terrible to be locked in boxes,

but when one room is strung upon the next
I want to walk further into the party
until it opens on the railyard.

There goes the last commuter.
It’s been a long day considering
all we dressed up for.

And where’s the slim credenza
of my mislaid cocktail?
Tomorrow too, still waiting

where we left it, like a list
to walk into? I lift an imagined drink
in empty hand as we move

backward through the festivities,
so concerned with elbows
I hardly notice faces.