To be that listening, sleepless,
always-trilling understudy
acting on small wavelengths, landing
on this shattered windshield, this enormous
self-storage facility, how a record
pollution at coyote hour
debauches the dusk. Otherwise,
the deadbolt feeling: without,
scavengers drain Nyquil bottles;
within, behind hollow-core doors,
figures ink figures in ballpoint blue, forget
what hand taints the lake with moon,
lifts the water’s fallen face,
sets the hill aquiver with penlights
plotting scores or orbits. Let in,
darkness springs each urge and limb
from day’s instrumental grip,
and each minute hastens
our softest mergers: sky into body,
body into earth. Shadows
make progress, summon the mammal
made less employee, more loafer and lingerer
as a spider spins its agate sac,
as ivy breaches the brickwork.
