Canis Latrans
Why am I standing
in the snow at 2am
wearing slippers and pajamas?
It’s the first snow of the winter
after the separation.
Just a light dusting,
pine-scented with camphor.
Cold full moon
wavering slightly,
sky tremulant, ink-black.
I could be alone, empty street
quieter than the crystalline
stars, when from vespertine
flurries, a coyote. He lopes
limber, night-hunting,
halts when he sees me
half-shadowed by lamplight
and sundering. Sharp yip
of notice, Christmas lights
on the neighbor’s house
dim in the falling.
Nocturne
My toddler calls out in his sleep
and when I ask him what he dreams
he tells me about the horses. He names them:
Snowy, Magpie, Cloud. I don’t know
if he’ll dream of riding them someday
when he understands the possibility
but for now he says they wait for him,
wanting cookies. When I dream of horses
I am field-scented, winged, unfettered,
like the ones I imagine on the mountainside,
figures in a wild herd, leaning against
each other when they sleep.
For the past week I’ve dreamt my toddler
alone in a room full of strangers.
The room turns to a field and the field turns
to the ocean where it’s just the two of us
swimming and singing, no longer lost.
When he tells me he's scared of the dark,
I tell him about the night-owls. How they perch
outside the windows watching over us.
Every night we talk to them at bedtime
like angels and sometimes
during the threshold before sleep
I can see their star-fringed wingspan.
My toddler asks them to bring us dreams, I ask
them to watch our nightmares.
Published August 15 2022