1 Early Evening
Nothing sadder
than the cry of cicadas
coming from their trees.
I saw your silhouette
standing between the bushes
the length of your kind shadow
hovering in the alley:
the light was dim, the sounds
were far, dinner was being made.
A twenty-something cycles past,
“I will be there soon.”
Touch my soul
the way you’d lower
our laundry over the line.
2 Noon is Night
Yesterday we drove
to a dark part of town
where night is noon, and noon is night
and our only light
a window. The streets were
un-peopled, and so were
the pavements: nobody
was caught smoking, beneath the shade
of the awning, and the birds
were quieter
than the trees. Only one window
had been lit at all, four squares
of amber, warm in the hour:
a stranger was changing, naked and
smiling, she wanted to see
her skin in the evening
and how her dress
would look in the lamplight.
3 Migration
Foxes. The secret dens
of foxes, the smells and paths
inside the crack inside
the ice, right down
the river and up left
the pines. Example,
preamble, bower me
an apple, and there the way
to you.
And now time post-haste,
pre- and pro-
immediate: Eng Bee on
a boat, Boon Keng on
a plane. There is night time in
the lungs of frogs, in
the hollow of a tree,
dreamer blueing
creamer thinging,
erotic neurotic thank you
my baby, right down
the river, up left
the plain. And here:
prudence in
a glass vial, a bird dead
in its nest: the algae
of the canal, the pad of
a lily: him in a jar and
her on the table, ready for
our supper time.
4 Goodnight, Sarah, Goodnight
We were all nearing
the end of the day, the
summer rains abating.
From the ground wafts the smell
of mud mixed with water. I shall drift
and reuse these lines
for future, better poems. For brighter
and newer places. “I’ll meet you in
some further place, I’ll see you in
the summer.” But nothing
could be worse. (He laughs and sings and
calls and says, “I’ll see you in your dreams,”
and nothing could be worse.) Good day,
my Sarah, and good evening. I’ll meet you at
the corner, I’ll see you in
the summertime.
5 Coda
Every evening the stirring of leaves.
Every evening the staying of the sun somewhere in
the sky, “I’m surprised it hasn’t set yet.” Every evening
the pushing of the hour and the staying of the day.
I suppose this is how it works: the gears begin
to loosen their teeth, and all I can offer
is surprise, and the love that I’ll leave
with you. You are the corner
where the light does not shine, and the moss
quietly grows.