Character Study (6)

I like being alone
in your apartment
while you are at work—
I feel like a fifties housewife
without the house or children
to mind. Touching the clothes
hanging in your closet
turns me on. I drink countless
cups of tea just to hear the deep
plunk of your kettle filling up.
When it isn't raining,
the mountain frames itself
in your window like a white
spaceship waiting to take off.
It's strange—everything
laden with extra meaning—
like a train speeding into a tunnel
in a Hitchcock film. The heavy,
coiled pleasure of the ticking clock
is a secret my grandmother
shouldn't have kept.