LA NOCHE

LA NOCHE

It bothers me

that the night

is outside minding its own

business while I am

in my room half

expecting you to appear

in the bed next to me.

You, with your brow arched,

surprised to have been

shipped across the night

like so much luggage;

the white roses of sleep

still in your skin.

I would be as surprised.

Hello? It would be like

saying hello to 

myself on this late August

night, where the voices

of dogs are so small

in the distance, that my breath

seems huge. no, hellos

would never do.

The dark just outside the

window waits for me to put

the lights out. It has ways

of getting to me, of opening

the dreams like oranges

and spilling these thoughts

of you all around me,

before I can catch a glimpse

of you shuttling across the

night air, not alarmed

at all by this thinking

it is just the changing

of the season that causes

these things. not alarmed

by the love of it. not at all.

Knowing you will wake up

far away from this room,

the night being busy

with so much else. with

traffic and dogs and things

of its fabric as to

make such journeys a

matter of reaching to the end

of the bed and pulling

another blanket up above

your shoulders.