"Rainy Night House"

Leaves and rain fall and festoon as Joni Mitchell croons farewell to October. Oh October! You leave everything on the table.

He meets me at the airport with flowers but later tells me about the time he has been spending with another woman. It's okay, I say, and mean it. We grow closer together and further apart, and we are both . . . happy?

My tanned and freckled hands fade back to porcelain. I sort kindling and stack wood despite the ever weakening pier of my body. It's still warm enough to open the window at night. The owl visits, sings a bit, and disappears before dawn. One sings without lyrics these days but have you ever noticed how good it feels to hum?

Bickering jays. The din of a thousand leaf blowers. Sometimes I sleep, but sometimes I roam around the encapsulated night, writing, thinking, guessing at poems. It is during this time I weigh my love for rivers against the more unhurried lapping of lake water against the shore.

A celibacy remains in which no one complains. We all grow too old to wear the masks and yet, the men all still mow bright lines in the lawn and the women shuffle tarot asking: what now?

Summer gold ends and distant moonlight glitters on pine.

We fall asleep
in the earth while
the one who lives
listens to the nothingness
of falling snow.