Home Alone

Home Alone

A book on the porch 

while the light lasts,

which it never has 

the decency to do, leaves us  

squinting mid-

sentence suspended 

somewhere at the margin. 

These days dusk edges in 

earlier, always earlier,

but if it's time 

for shutting down

no one told the piano, 

and no one’s here to call 

to mind how loud is allowed

to bang the blacks 

and the dark back 

till the gravel cries out 

a late-coming return.