Richard Brautigan




I Lie Here in a Strange Girl's Apartment

For Marcia

I lie here in a strange girl's apartment.
She has poison oak, a bad sunburn
     and is unhappy.
She moves about the place
like distant gestures of solemn glass.
She opens and closes things.
She turns the water on,
and she turns the water off.
All the sounds she makes are faraway.
They could be in a different city.
It is dusk and people are staring
out the windows of that city.
Their eyes are filled with the sounds
     of what she is doing.