glint of the sun off a spider web

Full Moon, Key West

by Elizabeth Bishop

The town is paper-white:
the moonlight is so bright.
Flake on flake
of wood and paint
the buildings faint.
The tin roofs break
into a sweat
of heavy dew
dripping steadily
down the gutters
click click.
Listen!
All over town
from black gaps
in bedroom gables
from little tables
behind the shutters
big alarm clocks
tick tick.
A spider's web
glints blue, glints red,
the mirrors glisten
and the knobs on the bed.

The island starts to hum
like music in a dream.
Paper-white, drunk,
the sailors come
stumbling, fighting,
mumbling threats
in children's voices,
stopping, lighting
cigarettes
with pink dull fires,
in groups like hands
and fingers on
the narrow sidewalks
of cement
that carry sounds
like tampered wires,
—the long strings of
an instrument
laid on the stream,
a zither laid
upon the flood
of the glittering Gulf.