The picture is all about
what the surrounding absence
makes of light
inside where the woman dwells
with her window open for air,
undressed
to her final grace note,
her pink slip.

Naked almost
she knows herself to be
but thinks she has held herself
inside a private moment in 1928,
primping
for what she hopes
her night will bring.

Held tight to her only life,
she’s not in the least aware
of what Edward Hopper
manages to see,
riding the evening El,
accompanied by
those crude voyeurs,
you and me.