Through brick and the dark

Windows, climbing stair by stair

What ripples along the surface of the night

Circle by tiny circle

Widens down the hallway

Whispers past the soft edge of desire

Shadowing broad figures in the carpet

Like a spider it trails the dust

On the bookshelf, the lamp, the old

Wooden chair from grandmother’s house

No one ever uses, wants like smoke

To take the wider air and

Search the street,

A headline looking for the action

On the glossy avenues, the loud caverns

That spill past the sidewalks

Out into traffic where the siren

Drains the breath from the long bright streets

Michael Dobberstein (IN)  teaches literature, creative writing and desktop publishing at Purdue University-Calumet. He has published poems in Beloit Poetry Journal, Poetry, Valparaiso Review and elsewhere.