At quarter to five

At Quarter to Five

I was feeling lonely so

I went outside to the wind

swept yard and beyond

that to the wind-tousled outer

yard and found where last

night in the moonlight we left

two sets of boot prints, when

you stopped on your way

through the darkness to bring a

lemon bar and a movie, and

beside ours the tracks of the

smallest thing with claws, which

must have followed sometime

later. And I chased its tiny prints

and our mud-wash indents to

the far back gate and through

the gate out to where the

land is still dirt and brush

and bushes and cow

pies, my hair pinned

to my head but still blowing,

blowing, and finally a hard

breath, and I could see

through lonely to the wide

open, long blue lines of sunset,

moonlit night, the airplanes trailing

one another

down to tarmac, all those

people landing home.