Taking the trash outside near midnight, and a warm breeze lifts the ends of my hair. Somewhere behind cobblestones of cloud, the moon has risen. Rain from earlier in the day has dissipated, its only trace in large puddles at intersections where water fights to find an exit through asphalt. This is the kind of quiet in which one might mistake any shift in the atmosphere as a message about one's destiny— Sorrow and remonstrance at the passage of time; the piercing tenderness of small sounds in darkness conveying all manner of memories dredged up from an interior sea . Trees beginning to tip with green. A door somewhere opening to the un- fathomable. I touch a link in the chain, one narrow length of greying wood among others in the fence, waiting for the right word to nuzzle against my hand. What does one say to break the spell? The sound of an engine accelerating. Garlic and onions sizzling in a pan on the stove. The click of my heels on tile after I come back across the threshold.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.