To be that listening, sleepless,
always-trilling understudy

acting on small wavelengths, landing
on this shattered windshield, this enormous

self-storage facility, how a record
pollution at coyote hour

debauches the dusk. Otherwise,
the deadbolt feeling: without,

scavengers drain Nyquil bottles;
within, behind hollow-core doors,

figures ink figures in ballpoint blue, forget
what hand taints the lake with moon,

lifts the water’s fallen face,
sets the hill aquiver with penlights

plotting scores or orbits. Let in,
darkness springs each urge and limb

from day’s instrumental grip,
and each minute hastens

our softest mergers: sky into body,
body into earth. Shadows

make progress, summon the mammal
made less employee, more loafer and lingerer

as a spider spins its agate sac,
as ivy breaches the brickwork.