::: SKIDROW PENTHOUSE :::

That summer I lived in darkness.
I let each forty or twenty watt bulb take its natural course
burning out the way you did.
I let each one sit in its chandelier arm,
milk glass globe.
My night stands held brass pineapple
lamps never illuminated,
forty-nine bulbs
used up and cool,
unused candles sat with me.
I ruined my eyes—
even the fridge light was tepid.
In the six rooms there was not one beam.
I lived by the grayish cast of the West Side Highway,
my memory and whatever was left over from the moon.

Lawrence Applebaum