You have sent me a postcard
of a pastel-washed house
alive somewhere along the Adriatic,
an electric meter (hung by a blue door)
electrocuting the romance of unchosen poverty
as the fact does
that someone painted windows
and used a razor blade to slice the panes clean
and then stopped,
someone who understood his yellows
and pinks and shades of rose
that are gnawed black at the foundation
by a dampness.
A plant grows potted.
Two chairs of straw and wood are placed
to hold the middle
and to rise from the corner of the picture
so that, from where I look,
leaning against the wood of my own chair
and locked in the middle of America
they are doll furniture
upright on my desk par avion.