Dostoyevsky sits on the table top. A lamp glows. Black and white photos nailed to walls. Even without color, you can tell she’s a blonde.

Joyce, Mailer, and Kerouac stand on a bookshelf. They look down at albums by Bill Evans, Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, and Miles Davis. A cactus is dying in the window. Too much love. Maybe, not enough.

Simic lies on the bed. He’s been read a hundred times. Still, nobody knows what he’s up to. His sentences are short, to the point. There are sweat stains on the pillow.

I sit in my easy chair, listening to a man read Bukowski. A poem about cats. Soon, it will be dark. And this world is never at peace.