Monica Berlin

SOMEONE LEFT THE LIGHTS ON, SO THAT NEARLY 

finished building on the corner waits up
tonight. Through those windows

what’s clear: there aren’t any
rooms yet, no walls, just stud & beam,

& the streetlights casting shadow &
something not unlike hello. Since nothing

is the fault of a building, I’m trying to
forgive the fact of it. Not so long ago

pat of where I now live was taken down
to pipe & wire, & on my knees

in those unfinished rooms, suddenly
all my own, I had to imagine ceilings,

a repair to everything broken, a way to fill
these spaces after clearing away the debris.

MONICA BERLIN (1973–2022) is the author of Elsewhere, That Small, Nostalgia for a World Where We Can Live, and, with Beth Marzoni, co-author of No Shape Bends the River So Long. The Henke Distinguished Professor of English at Knox College, she also serves as associate director of the Program in Creative Writing.