Curfew Excepting an all-night globe palely burning the corridor at 5 A.M. was dark but for my iridescent shoes and a ribbon of light under the door three rooms away where a flush choked and swallowed as I strode past in silence not knowing this poem is for the interrupted-sleeper or early-riser who also perhaps was observing the curfew Late Scuff marks shimmering on the footstool. Still water in a glass. The soundless TV in liquid black and white. Somewhere, an infant's cry. Rhythmic and fleeting. As if the 8 o'clock sky has harvested it for dew. I close the August windows and read Hawthorne nearly weeping for his heroine, and think: what good fortune to be so happy we can mourn these imaginary lives.