– after Egon Schiele's Houses and Colourful Laundry, 1914

Four row boats rest bow-up on shore,
and the hill houses' laundry flags
in tiers of autumn waving to the river.
Everywhere windows are empty of faces,
walkways slant from dun colored houses
and no one wanders home
or hesitates over unfinished work.
In this wash, nothing needs finishing,
what the sun says, it says in a slow
breath too sure to be weary, for even this late
it drags out each syllable as steady as one day
when the clothes of the missing hang waiting
in last light for an evening without a face.