At dusk's inexact instant

the brownstone sounds, the dishes

clicking in kitchens,

the whippet's hollow whine,

a siren, someone's distant Spanish,

disappear into silence

until the street is a hollow thing

beyond all murmuring.,

your footsteps as crisp

as a clock. You lack

all recrimination, pure

as traffic-hum, like a  bum

who doesn't ask for change,

with all the commerce halted,

all the longing gone.

This poem originally appeared in Poetry.