drips, thick,
rustles dry in the ivy like many small animals foraging.
Behind a doorway,
piano music starts, a song I know;
then stops one note before the crest
of the arpeggio. Why does it feel
as though someone I love is dying?
Nothing has happened here beyond the strangeness
of another night on earth, sunset swallowed
by this opaque sky, and from somewhere above,
the questioning assurances
of geese—you there? you there? I’m here—
you there—