vespers

the floorboards are crickets,
every step is dark enough
to make them sing. Beyond
the screen door meadows
of grass stab into the yellow
light holding it captive. the trees
are contriving to release the
night they hold all day under
their leaves twined with tiny knots.
Fireflies extinguish themselves
in the heat, before the moth's
frenzy finds them.
I spend all night pacing
these sheets, a map of pointless
complexity and dying oceans




.