The Way toward Sleep

Abstract

A man in black sweat pants spits, crosses the wet street in front of my house. His five dogs bark. There are many more things this could mean besides hunger, love, the hunger of things in halves. At night, in bed, I can't see the screen: the light of stars and the house next door move closer, unloosed like the lights off a highway as you drive from town. Stone wall, tree branch, night not taken entirely, its neck still blond though neatly bound. I remember a rifle meeting trees in dark water. Starlings, like scars on their branches. And yet I was alone. Who could have known the roof of the house would fold back like an old grand piano and the stars, multiform spit of a man, could keep this dark from the sound of dogs, the dogs from ever going out.