The Morning Room

Lyrics

I didn't sleep. The stairs are cold under my feet.
Down from the heart of the house, where the breathing is.
Past the fixed gazes of The Portrait Hall, their varnish eyes following.
I turn left at the landing, away from the weight of The Library.
Not today. No more words written by men who are gone.
I need a different kind of truth this morning.

There’s a ghost of coffee on the air, from a pot brewed in 1952.
The door is open just enough to show a blade of light on the floorboards.
It pulls me in. It always does.
This is the room for beginnings.
This is the room where things are seen for the first time.
Or the last.

And the light, the east light, cuts a clean line across the marble tabletop.
It's not warm. It's surgical.
It illuminates the two Wedgwood cups. One for me, one for the ghost of you.
It doesn't forgive the dust. It reveals the facts.
This is the light that performs the autopsy on the night.

A palimpsest of mornings.
For a moment, this is a schoolroom, and your small hand is writing on a slate.
Then the slate dissolves. It’s 1924, and a woman I never knew is choosing these sheer linen curtains to soften a truth she cannot bear.
Did you sit at this table? Did you also place two cups?
Did this same clean light show you the shape of your own loneliness?

The pale yellow of the light has a sound. A high, thin note that vibrates behind my eyes.
My reflection in the bay window is wearing a dress I haven't owned in twenty years.
In her hand is the letter I remember receiving, or the letter I remember imagining.
The difference closed a long time ago.
The clock says 7:15, which means it is 7:05, which means it is too late.

And the light, the east light, cuts its clean line across the marble tabletop.
It's not kind. It's clarifying.
It weighs on the empty cup, the one that you will never hold again.
It doesn't forgive. It simply is.
This is the light that performs the autopsy on a life.

The dust motes dance in the beam.
They are the only things moving in here.