Housework, 9PM (Eclogue 3)

Could it be this time of night,

when from the kitchen window

the edges of the trees fall into the sky,

the air condenses into wood,

leaves evaporate.

Not 4AM, believable in its abject

stillness, around which dreams are spun,

stillness even of the crickets, and the last light

of the moon reflected off the eyes of the invisible

predators, off the vanishing wings of moths.

Not even of midnight, still sticky in its residues, ruffled

with agitations of the in-between, tossings, turnings,

working-outs of the wrinkles of work clothes and skins.

This time of night, it could be 9PM, when the world starts

closing in on us sooner this time of year. Housework.

Tidy up the frays with washings of

water glasses, and the knives that carve out

tomorrow in leftovers, yesterdays reheated;

the coffee ground, counters wiped,

the matching of socks, the laying-outs of

blouses and uniforms and button-downs,

weather forecasts: these are preparations,

libations for ghosts. Our own. Prayers, really,

because of the certainty that tomorrow

can go on without us, will go on, if. Our hearts:

choking up, choking down, choking on all

that occupies them, the ever-expanding pericardium

to accommodate ourselves, tailored to ill-

fit our beautiful bodies, stopped for a moment

at this time of night before the kitchen window,

where outside hover golden rectangles, the outlines

of buildings without which it would be too unbearable to

see the trees. The trees, unnameable in the dark;

we thought they strain to reach the sky, to pull

themselves out of the ground and become

of the air, of the wind; to lift the burden

of the lightness of birds on their branches

heavy with envy. No, it is the trees hungry

for the sky, for the wind, for this time of night.

To pull it into themselves, breathe in its particles

as they suck up the rain, so expansive their appetite

that the surfeit films their green. Hungry for

to swell, broaden, to take in more as our

occupied hearts, to hold eternal

that which it cannot possess—certainty

that tomorrow will go on with us,

that housework is no entropy,

that our weather forecasts can approximate

against the asymptote of September, 9PM—

that, could it be, this time of night,

we can be like moons to eclipse the sun,

like buildings to eclipse the stars,

and trees to eclipse the sky as a canopy

under which we can all sleep, assured

of our waking in the morning.

John K., 9/14 & 9/15/2009