Anatomy of Late
It looks like a fox, when it’s sleeping. No, its body
won’t be that red, that curled certain with tufts of sky. It looks
like the moss that covers your dream of the fox when sleep
becomes something more, becomes a winter that falls down
over its haunches like moongrass pretending to be a mother’s heat–
what a fox might wish to dream when its sleep
ends. I’m afraid to say
what it looks like, and you know why.
I’m not there yet, and won’t be. I’m sorry.
I’m back here building late from childhood’s lorn bones:
a skate key, wet sleeves, Monopoly’s little tin shoe.
(Too small to play, but you
could hold it.) Late
looks like your brother slamming the front door because he
doesn’t know you’re still inside. He thinks
you’re somewhere safe. His sneakers whisking up the street
and lights in all the other houses brimming on. He thinks
you don’t need him. Believe that late
has a brink. Believe that night comes in
and you’re still in the chair, wet sleeves, waiting.
