Lisa Gluskin
Air Conditioner
A man came and cut a hole in the wall.
Now their room hums and purrs, exchanging
one air for another. Beside her
he turns, mumbles. Burrows in for the night.
Through the screen, the scrim,
the pulsing grid of the box, she hears the street
on the other side, impersonating
some other place. The interstate, the old
house on a lake. A train station.
The hot sad air of some other city.
The box rasps and burbles, coughs a language
line by line. Liminal,
she thinks. Agitate.
White noise. All their words
broken down and weightless, filtered
through that whirring fan.
Rhythm. Diurnal. That other summer,
sweating under a single sheet.
Turning together, silent. Two satellite towers
scanning the night.
Lisa Gluskin is a San Francisco writer and editor. Lately, she's been
working real hard not to signify. You can see more of her work here.
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